How women are resisting Poland’s abortion ban

By Costanza Spocci
26 May 2022

Warsaw, Poland – On a cold, hazy December morning, the Ryz sisters stand on a sidewalk of a busy street in Warsaw.

“Shall we go to church?” 24-year-old Olympia asks her sister, Melania, grinning and holding up a dozen pink, yellow and grey stickers with the words, “Abortion is OK”, and the hotline numbers and social media profiles of Polish pro-choice organisations.

Continued: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/longform/2022/5/26/how-women-are-resisting-polands-abortion-ban

26.05.2022

Abortion Without Borders

Agnieszka T

Aleksander Stępkowski

All-Poland Women's Strike

European Court of Human Rights

FEDERA

Federation for Women and Family Planning

Law and Justice party

Ogólnopolski Strajk Kobiet

Olympia Ryz

Ordo Luris

Polish Episcopal Conference

registry of pregnant women

septic shock

severe foetal abnormalities

U.N. and advocates raise concerns of abortion access for Ukrainian refugees in Poland

May 17, 2022
PATRICK ADAMS, NPR

Ukrainian women who were raped by Russian soldiers are among the millions of refugees who have fled to Poland.

And they now find themselves in a country that severely restricts access to reproductive health care, including both contraception and abortion.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/05/17/994654590/u-n-and-advocates-raise-concerns-of-abortion-access-for-ukrainian-refugees-in-po

What the U.S. Could Learn from Abortion Without Borders

A coalition across Europe is resisting Poland’s abortion ban. Its strategy could foreshadow activism in a post-Roe America.

Anna Louie Sussman, The New Yorker
May 17, 2022

Last month, an abortion-rights activist named Justyna Wydrzyńska stood in a courtroom in Warsaw, Poland, and described her abortion. Her lips were painted a defiant red; her voice cracked at times, but she was unapologetic. When she was thirty-three, she said, she was in an abusive marriage and learned that she was pregnant. She struggled to find accurate information online and had to order three packs of abortion pills—the first two, from the black market, were duds. She was terrified that she would bleed out or fall unconscious in front of her three children, who were too young to call an ambulance. Wydrzyńska, who is forty-seven, is now part of a coalition of activists called Abortion Without Borders. She was on trial for helping another Polish woman get an abortion.

Abortion was legal when Poland was under Communist control, but, in 1993, the predominantly Catholic country outlawed most abortions, except in cases of rape, incest, severe fetal conditions, and risk to the life of the patient. As the U.S. Supreme Court considers Roe v. Wade and giving states the ability to ban abortion, the diverse, international coalition of Abortion Without Borders may model an effective approach to abortion-rights activism in a post-Roe America—and also its risks.

Continued: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/what-the-us-could-learn-from-abortion-without-borders

A covert network of activists is preparing for the end of Roe

What will the future of abortion in America look like?

By Jessica Bruder
APRIL 4, 2022

One bright afternoon in early January, on a beach in Southern California, a young woman spread what looked like a very strange picnic across an orange polka-dot towel: A mason jar. A rubber stopper with two holes. A syringe without a needle. A coil of aquarium tubing and a one-way valve. A plastic speculum. Several individually wrapped sterile cannulas—thin tubes designed to be inserted into the body—which resembled long soda straws. And, finally, a three-dimensional scale model of the female reproductive system.

The two of us were sitting on the sand. The woman, whom I’ll call Ellie, had suggested that we meet at the beach; she had recently recovered from COVID-19, and proposed the open-air setting for my safety. She also didn’t want to risk revealing where she lives—and asked me to withhold her name—because of concerns about harassment or violence from anti-abortion extremists.

Continued: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/roe-v-wade-overturn-abortion-rights/629366/

04.04.2022

American Medical Association

Army of Three

Autonomous Pelvic Care

Carol Downer

Choix

Clergy Consultation Service

Danika Severino Wynn

Del-Em device

dilatation and curettage

DIY abortion

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

Laurie Bertram Roberts

Letitia James

Lorraine Rothman

lunch-hour abortion

manual vacuum aspiration

Mountain Access Brigade

Plan C

Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood v. Casey

self-managed abortion

Self-managed Abortion Safe and Supported

telemedicine abortion

The End of Roe v. Wade

traveling for abortion

trigger laws

undue burden standard

Out of the Alley

How self-managed abortion looks today.

by Lux Alptraum and Erika Moen, The Nib
APRIL 4, 2022

This comic is not intended as medical advice and was not reviewed by a medical professional. Mifepristone and/or Misoprostol may not be safe and/or effective for all people. Please consult a medical professional prior to an abortion.

Continued: https://thenib.com/self-managed-abortion/

Polish woman is first activist to face trial for violating strict abortion law

Justyna Wydrzyńska, who gave a woman experiencing domestic violence miscarriage-inducing pills, could be jailed for three years

Weronika Strzyżyńska
Mon 28 Mar 2022

The first pro-choice activist to be charged in Poland for breaking the country’s strict abortion law by providing miscarriage-inducing tablets to a pregnant woman is due to face trial next week.

Justyna Wydrzyńska, from the Polish group Aborcyjny Dream Team (ADT), is charged with illegally aiding an abortion and faces up to three years in prison if she is found guilty.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/mar/28/polish-woman-is-first-to-face-trial-for-violating-strict-abortion-law

Mexico – Free Abortion Across Borders

Following Mexico’s Supreme Court ruling to decriminalize abortion, feminists in the country continue to help people access care. Their work can serve as a model for US activists navigating the limits of state health services.

BY ZOÉ VANGELDER
FEBRUARY 4, 2022

This story originally appeared in Dissent on Oct. 13, 2021, and is shared with permission via the Progressive International’s Wire.

Crystal, an abortion acompañante from Mexico, has a green bandana attached to her backpack that signals her involvement in the marea verde, the “green wave” of reproductive rights activism gaining momentum throughout Latin America. In her bag she carries pamphlets from the Tijuana Safe Abortion Network and Las Bloodys, the feminist collective she helped found. Designed to fold up into a neat rectangle that slips discreetly into a back pocket, the pamphlets provide details for how to self-administer an abortion safely, avoiding legal and medical risks.

Crystal clarified that aborto libre didn’t just mean free of charge; it also means free as in liberated, free from stigma, free from medicalized control and legal restrictions, free for pregnant people to make the best decision for themselves.

Continued: https://therealnews.com/free-abortion-across-borders

Mexican women’s solidarity defies Texas abortion law

Natalia Marques
January 3, 2022

Verónica Cruz of the Mexican women’s activist network Las Libres declared, “We aren’t afraid. … We are willing to face criminalization, because women’s lives matter more than their law.”

Cruz and other women in her organization say they will help bring U.S. women seeking abortion from Texas and other parts of the U.S. into Mexico, where abortion is now legal. They are also committed to providing women with medication abortion drugs — bring abortion pills into the U.S. or send them by mail.

Continued: https://www.liberationnews.org/mexican-womens-solidarity-defies-texas-abortion-law/

Abortion Without Borders has helped almost 32,000 people from Poland

Abortion Without Borders (Aborcja Bez Granic)
has helped almost 32,000 people from Poland to access abortions in its second
year of existence.

Published on December 11, 2021

Abortion Without Borders is a grassroots feminist network that was launched on
11 December 2019 to help anyone in Poland access a safe abortion in Poland or
abroad. In the face of fresh attempts by Poland to criminalise women for having
abortions, Abortion Without Borders continues to help people who need support,
including 1,186 who were forced to travel to a clinic or hospital in another
country.

At least two women died this year after being denied an abortion for a
pregnancy that was threatening their lives. Poland criminalised almost all
abortions in a constitutional tribunal ruling in October 2020, and the last few
weeks have seen attempts by the Polish government to criminalise what little
abortion access remains in the country.

Continued: https://womenhelp.org/pl/page/1383/abortion-without-borders-helps-almost-32-000-polish-people-in-second

Poland – What it’s like to live in a country with a near total ban on abortion

As the US teeters on the brink of outlawing abortion, an expert from Poland explains the practical and emotional consequences of such a ban

Katarzyna Wężyk
7 December 2021

openDemocracy asked me, as a Pole and the author of a book about abortion, to describe what it's like to live in a country with restricted reproductive rights.

In short: it’s lonely, humiliating, dangerous to life and health, and it undermines the rule of law. And it’s expensive.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/live-in-a-country-near-total-ban-abortion/