One of the organisers, Bogusław Kiernicki, told the crowd on Castle Square in Warsaw’s old town, “it is not an [act of] grace that we allow a child to be born; it is their sacred right.”

The march took place on Sunday and followed Friday’s votes by the Sejm, the more powerful lower house of parliament, in favour of further legislative work on rival bills aimed at ending Poland’s near-total abortion ban.

While two of those bills would allow unrestricted abortion up to 12 weeks, a third bill from a more conservative party of the Government coalition would return the law to its pre-2021 form: restoring abortion when the unborn child is diagnosed with a serious disability.

That proposal has the support of the most powerful members of Poland’s opposition: Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of the Law and Justice party (PiS) and Mateusz Morawiecki, the former Prime Minister. This represents a u-turn by both. They had previously supported the 2021 ban on abortion due to disability, describing the practice as ‘eugenics’.