Ewa Schaedler from the Third Way party called the vote ''symbolic'' and ''a breakthrough'' for Polish women. However the subject remains divisive in the mostly Catholic country.
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00:00 The Polish Parliament has voted to end the country's near-total abortion ban.
00:06 Rules were tightened under the former Law and Justice Government.
00:10 In the Catholic-majority country, abortion has been allowed in cases of rape, incest or if the mother's life is at risk.
00:17 We support 130 women to have an abortion every day.
00:21 More than hundreds take abortion pills at their own home.
00:25 They're usually sourced from the internet, from women and from other reliable providers.
00:30 Some of them travel abroad because they are more than 12 months pregnant and need to go to the clinic abroad.
00:36 We support them also financially and as a network of abortion-free donors,
00:41 we counted that we spent more than 11 million euro in the last years.
00:46 Four proposals to ease restrictions were put to the Parliament,
00:50 including one from the Prime Minister's party legalising abortion up to 12 weeks.
00:57 I'm sorry, but today is a symbolic day, a turning point,
01:01 a day that our daughters and granddaughters will probably remember.
01:06 Something that was impossible to break for 30 years has happened.
01:11 After 23 different attempts to change our law on abortion,
01:18 all of them were rejected after the first reading, and today we've achieved success.
01:24 Recent polls show more people are in favour of changing the rules.
01:28 Any changes, though, have to be signed into law by President Andrzej Duda,
01:33 who's aligned with the former populist government.
01:36 I voted for the rejection of each of the four proposals.
01:39 I think that each of them is against the Polish constitution, so it requires rejection.
01:44 Even though change appears to be coming,
01:47 activists who've been fighting for the liberalisation of the law for years
01:51 aren't claiming victory just yet.
01:54 I think that's the first battle that was won, but there are a lot many more ahead of us,
01:59 and we will just have to see.
02:01 There is a lot of work to be done in the parliamentary committee.
02:04 We'll still have to see who will be appointed to sit in that committee,
02:07 and then we'll be working further on abortion bills.
02:10 I would say that this is a glimpse of hope, but we are far away from the actual win.
02:15 Poland's vote to open a debate on liberalisation of the right to abortion
02:20 coincides with the EU Parliament's favour of including abortion in the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
02:26 Magdalena Chudowni, for Euronews, from Warsaw.
02:29 [SWOOSH]