Abortion Without Borders helps more than 34,000 people in Poland access abortions

Published on October 21, 2021

A year ago – on 22 October 2020 – a Polish Constitutional Court decided
that the provision of abortion in case of foetal malformation was
unconstitutional. While the decision didn’t come into force until 27 January
2021, the change happened immediately. The next day, despite the still-valid
provision of abortion under Poland’s abortion act, the first four people
refused abortion in Polish hospitals called Abortion Without Borders for help.

Over the past 12 months Abortion Without Borders groups have helped 34,000
people from Poland to access abortion. 1080 people were able to terminate their
pregnancy in a foreign clinic in the second trimester. Financial support given
was more than 700,000 zloty/ £129,000/ €153,000.

Continued: https://www.asn.org.uk/abortion-without-borders-helps-more-than-34000-people-in-poland-access-abortions/

Abortion Without Borders thrilled that Denmark is considering helping Polish people access abortions abroad

Published on July 20, 2021
Abortion Without Borders

Danish press reported that political parties the Red-Green Alliance and the Social Liberal Party want the Danish state to allocate DKK20 million (over €2.7 million) over four years to help people from Poland to have abortions in Denmark. If all goes to plan, the DKK20 million will go to the organisation Sex & Society, which – in cooperation with the international network Abortion Without Borders – will make abortion accessible to about 165 people per year. The proposal was also supported by the liberal-conservative Venstre party, currently the largest in opposition.

Denmark allows abortion on request until the twelfth week, unless the life or health of the pregnant person is in danger. This proposal could be particularly helpful for people given diagnoses of foetal abnormality or genetic defects in the second or third trimester of pregnancy – those people who were hit hardest by Poland’s “constitutional tribunal” (pseudo-court) decisions on 22 October 2020.

Continued: https://www.asn.org.uk/abortion-without-borders-thrilled-that-denmark-is-considering-helping-polish-people-access-abortions-abroad/

Europe’s underground abortion network

When terminations are banned in Poland, Polish women buy train tickets

Feb 27th 2021
The Economist

Wander around any Polish city and the same phone number pops up on an array of unlikely surfaces. It is scrawled on bus stops and billboards. It can be daubed on the side of a church. Head online and the same number (+48 222 922 597) appears in people’s usernames. Those who dial it are put through to Kobiety w Sieci (“Women on the Net”), a group that offers women information on how to get abortions. In a country where providing terminations is now, in effect, illegal, it is a useful number to have.

In October Poland’s constitutional court struck down a law allowing abortion in cases of fetal abnormality. Of the 1,000 or so legal abortions in Poland per year before the ban, nearly all were in this category. Now, abortion is limited to cases of rape or to save a mother’s life. This fulfils a long-held dream of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party to clamp down on abortions. Activists responded by turning cities into a gonzo Yellow Pages.

Continued: https://www.economist.com/europe/2021/02/27/europes-underground-abortion-network

Poland – How to Make Abortion Great Again

How to Make Abortion Great Again

Poland has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the European Union, and in practice, it's all but banned. But four women, nicknamed the "Abortion Dream Team," are pushing back, holding workshops around the country teaching women how to obtain and self-manage a medical abortion. With Roe v. Wade at risk of being overturned in the U.S., is their story a cautionary tale, or a possible roadmap for American women?

By Anna Louie Sussman
Nov 4, 2019

On a rainy day in May, in the Polish coastal city of Gdańsk, in a high-ceilinged room on the second floor of an unremarkable building, 16 women and five men sat in mismatched office chairs around a long table, waiting to learn how to administer a medical abortion. Before the workshop began in earnest, one of the speakers, Karolina Więckiewicz, turned to a bald, bearded man on her left, whose papers spread out in front of him suggested he might be from a prosecutor’s office, and asked him to stop recording.

Continued: https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a28690537/abortion-dream-team-poland/