Will Poland’s New Government Legalize Abortion?

Despite campaign promises, the fight for abortion rights seems far from over.

FEBRUARY 12, 2024
Foreign Policy

After Poland’s parliamentary election in October, many voters were hopeful that the new government would finally scrap the country’s strict abortion law. The law, which had been in place for three decades, was tightened further in 2020, leading to a near-total ban on abortion.

The election ended the eight-year rule of Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS), with the opposition winning enough seats to form a coalition government. In the lead-up to the vote, two of the three groups that made up the opposition—the centrist Civic Coalition and the Left—pledged to legalize abortion up to or through 12 weeks of pregnancy; the former promised to do so within the first 100 days in office.

Continued: https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/02/12/poland-abortion-rights-pro-choice-election-coalition-pis-law-ban/


Tusk faces a big fight overturning Poland’s abortion ban

The prime minister says easing Poland’s near-total abortion ban is a priority, but he’s facing stiff opposition from within.

FEBRUARY 9, 2024
BY WOJCIECH KOŚĆ

WARSAW — Poland’s new government won power thanks to the votes of millions of women, but it's now split over an issue that garnered their support — easing abortion rules.

The far-right nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) government ruled from 2015 until last October and, in alliance with the Roman Catholic Church, espoused toughening Poland's already very restrictive abortion rules.

Continued: https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-tusk-faces-big-fight-overturning-abortion-ban/


In Poland, I Saw What a Second Trump Term Could Do to America

by Michelle Goldberg
Photographs by Rafal Milach
Feb. 6, 2024

Adam Bodnar, Poland’s new justice minister, recently explained to me the immense challenge of rebuilding liberal democracy in his country after an eight-year slide toward authoritarianism. Imagine, he said, that Donald Trump had won the last election and been in power for two terms instead of one. “What would be the damage?” he asked.

After only four years of Trump, President Biden inherited a furiously divided nation, its courts seeded with right-wing apparatchiks and the nature of reality itself in deep dispute. But as even MAGA die-hards will acknowledge, Trump often failed to bend the state to his will, which is why his allies have a plan to do things differently next time, purging civil servants and replacing them with loyalists. Poland is a country that has just gone through something like what Trumpists hope to impose on us in a second term. Its institutions have been hollowed out. Many experienced technocrats and neutral judges have been replaced by lackeys and ideologues.

Continue: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/06/opinion/abortion-ban-poland-democracy.html


In the three years since Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal ruling, Abortion Without Borders has helped more than 125,000 people in Poland to access safe abortion

Wednesday, October 25, 2023

In the three years since Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal ruling, Abortion Without Borders has helped more than 125,000 people in Poland to access safe abortion with more than PLN 3,675,000 (€823,290) in funding.

During the last year (from 22.10.2022 to 22.10.2023), Abortion Without Borders groups helped 46,773 thousand people from Poland to access abortion with more than PLN 1,675,031 (€375,250). More than 1,235 of these people traveled abroad to access a second or third trimester abortion.

Continued: https://womenhelp.org/en/page/1577/new-data-from-abortion-without-borders-in-the-three-years-since


‘Abortion tests’ developed in Poland spark concern

Scientists are questioning the reliability and ethics of tests to detect abortion drugs in biological samples.

Oct 11, 2023
Layal Liverpool, Nature

Tests under development in Poland that are designed to detect abortion drugs in biological samples are raising scientific and ethical concerns among scientists.

It is not clear to what extent such tests are being used by judicial authorities in Poland, where abortion is restricted by law in most circumstances. But researchers question whether the tests are ready to be used to determine pregnancy outcomes. They also warn that such tests have the potential to embolden prosecutors in Poland and other countries with restrictive laws on abortion — and to discourage women there from seeking safe reproductive care.

Continued: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03129-9


There Are Now Tests That Can Detect If Someone Took Abortion Pills

The chilling development comes out of Poland, where prosecutors have already used the tests to investigate pregnancy outcomes, reports the New York Times.

By Susan Rinkunas, Jezebel
Sept 14, 2023

Scientists in Poland have reportedly developed lab tests that can detect whether people have taken abortion pills—and those tests are already being used to investigate pregnancy outcomes under the country’s abortion ban. This is an alarming development, to say the least, and unfortunately, it feels like it’s only a matter of time before a U.S. state replicates the effort.

According to a bone-chilling piece in the New York Times, Polish scientists have developed tests that can identify both mifepristone and misoprostol, the drugs typically used in a medication abortion. (Though some people do use misoprostol alone.) The studies were part of a research project funded by the Polish government where researchers were able to find evidence of misoprostol in the placenta and mifepristone in a woman’s blood sample. A spokesperson for a prosecutor’s office in Wroclaw confirmed to the Times that Polish authorities have already used the tests to investigate pregnancy outcomes.

Continued; https://jezebel.com/there-are-now-tests-that-can-detect-if-someone-took-abo-1850839647


In Poland, Testing Women for Abortion Drugs Is a Reality. It Could Happen in the U.S.

Sept. 14, 2023
By Patrick Adams

Nearly three years ago, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal effectively ended legal abortion in the country. Since then, the Polish government has vigorously repressed the nation’s reproductive rights movement and ramped up surveillance of women who are suspected of terminating their pregnancies. Authorities have violently dispersed demonstrations, threatened activists with prison time and ordered doctors to record all pregnancies in a new national database.

Even before Roe v. Wade was overturned last summer, Poland’s draconian crackdown, which was spearheaded by the governing right-wing Law and Justice party, should have been alarming to American supporters of abortion rights. It was always possible that some aspects of what has happened there could happen here.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/14/opinion/abortion-pills-testing-poland.html


Poland: Abortion Witch Hunt Targets Women, Doctors

Criminalization, Pursuit of Alleged Offenders Violates Rights

September 14, 2023
Human Rights Watch

(London) – Poland’s government is targeting people for alleged abortion-related activities, intensifying a climate of fear that heightens risks for women and girls, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch released a video highlighting how the government’s dubious use of its powers to chase down alleged abortion-related activity threatens people’s rights to privacy, autonomy, and health, amongst others.

Since a near-ban on legal abortion in 2020, Polish officials have increasingly opened investigations on questionable legal grounds against women and girls seeking medical care for miscarriages or after legal medication abortions, as well as against doctors. Polish law does not criminalize having an abortion but rather anyone who provides or assists someone in having an abortion outside of highly restricted grounds. The government is apparently attempting to find a basis for prosecuting family members, friends, and healthcare providers for illegally providing or assisting abortions.

Continued: https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/09/14/poland-abortion-witch-hunt-targets-women-doctors


“Undress, Squat, Cough” — Police In Poland Ramp Up The Abortion Crackdown

Poland, known for having some of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws, only allows the procedure in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the mother is at risk. But even when abortions are performed legally, women can be met with criminal accusations from the police.

Dominika Wantuch
July 19, 2023

KRAKOW — Poland's conservative government has made restricting abortion access a guiding pillar since returning to power in 2015. Now that appears to include orders to police to detain women seeking access to terminate a pregnancy in the case of health risks, one of the few exceptions to the strict national abortion ban.

One Polish woman, identified as "Joanna" told police this week that police detained her, saying she had been pressured into having an abortion. She had purchased abortion pills on her own volition after health problems, and had decided to take them, which is not punishable in Poland.

Continued: https://worldcrunch.com/culture-society/poland-abortion-police-crackdown


Poland braces for abortion protests as doctors become center of storm

The unrest follows the death of a 33-year-old pregnant woman in May.

BY WOJCIECH KOŚĆ
JUNE 13, 2023

WARSAW — A wave of abortion rights protests is set to take place in Poland on Wednesday sparked by the death in May of a pregnant woman — an incident that has thrust doctors into the eye of the storm.

Dorota Lalik, a 33-year-old pharmacist, checked into the Pope John Paul II hospital in the southern Polish town of Nowy Targ after her waters broke on May 21. She was five months pregnant.

Continued: https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-dorota-lalik-death-braces-for-abortion-protests-as-doctors-become-centre-of-storm/