EU must guarantee access to reproductive healthcare for Ukrainian refugees

Third anniversary of Russia invasion highlights ongoing gaps in care and protection

02.24.2025
Center for Reproductive Rights

BRUSSELS — Three years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, many refugees—particularly women and girls—continue to face serious barriers in accessing essential sexual and reproductive healthcare in some parts of the EU.

The recent decision to renew the EU’s Temporary Protection Directive (TPD) extends member states’ obligations to provide crucial support to millions fleeing the war, including healthcare. However, its inconsistent implementation in some countries, and the lack of detailed guidance from the European Commission on its requirements, has left many women from Ukraine without affordable access to good quality maternal healthcare, contraception services and urgent abortion care.

Continued: https://reproductiverights.org/eu-access-reproductive-healthcare-ukrainian-refugees/

24.02.2025

News

Care in Crisis report

Center for Reproductive Rights

European Institute for Gender Equality

Katrine Thomasen

Mihela Kralj

refugees and abortion

Temporary Protection Directive

Stella Creasy warns UK is seeing weaponisation of abortion like US and whoever disagrees must ‘wake up’

Labour MP speaks amid fears UK could become new battleground for abortion rights, with campaigners pushing for decriminalisation this year but anti-abortionists hitting back from other side

Tara Cobham
Tuesday 28 January 2025

The UK is seeing the “weaponisation of abortion” after anti-abortionists learned from effective tactics in the US over the past decade, a senior Labour backbencher has warned.

Stella Creasy warned she has personally seen the agenda of American anti-abortion groups now being pushed in parliament, citing the example of longtime Donald Trump ally Nigel Farage calling for parliament to debate imposing stricter limits on abortion last year.

Continued: https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/politics/abortion-rights-stella-creasy-trump-farage-b2686637.html

28.01.2025

News

Amnesty International

British Pregnancy Advisory Service

Ukraine ‘Abortion Fairy’ Helps Refugees in Poland

For many women fleeing the war, Poland’s restrictive abortion laws came as a surprise.

by AFP
August 23, 2023

As a survivor of an attempted rape in Poland, Ukrainian Nastya Podorozhnya knows how lonely the struggle of a woman living in a foreign country can be.

This was why the 26-year-old -- a “Ukrainian abortion fairy in Poland,” as she describes herself on Instagram -- has made it her goal to help refugee women exercise their reproductive rights in the country with a near-total abortion ban.

Podorozhnya moved to Poland in 2014 to study, and it was during her university years that she fell victim to sexual violence.

Continued: https://www.kyivpost.com/post/20830

23.08.2023

Ukraine abortion fairy

Getting abortion pills into Ukraine during a war meant having to be creative

March 8, 2023
Gregory Warner
6-minute listen with transcript

When Russia invaded Ukraine, the supply of abortion pills dwindled. NPR reporters follow a secret effort to resupply doctors and help women with pregnancies made complicated by war.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
This story takes us to the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a covert effort to resupply Ukrainian doctors with abortion pills. The story comes from our podcast, Rough Translation. Because of the secrecy of the doctor's mission and because of medical privacy, most of the people in this story are referred to by just one name or, in one case, no name at all. Here is Rough Translation host Gregory Warner and reporter Katz Laszlo.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/08/1161859625/getting-abortion-pills-into-ukraine-during-a-war-meant-having-to-be-creative

08.03.2023

Interviews/Podcasts

abortion pills

Galina Maistruk

International Planned Parenthood Federation

Ukraine: The Handoff

NPR, Rough Translation
February 3, 2023
31-Minute Listen, with Transcript

…WARNER: The last time we were together, we told you the story of an amateur smuggling operation bringing abortion pills into Ukraine right after the invasion.

WEBSTER: That story was called Ukraine: Under The Counter. It's in both of our feeds. Go listen.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1153779472

03.02.2023

Interviews/Podcasts

Galina Maistruk

International Planned Parenthood Federation

smuggling abortion pills

Europe

Ukraine

Activism

Ukraine’s Women Refugees Face the Harsh Reality of Poland’s Abortion Restrictions

BY AMIE FERRIS-ROTMAN
JUNE 21, 2022

In the early days of May, in the third month of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a mother in her early 40s crossed the border into Poland, seeking safety for herself and two teenage children. She also carried with her a secret: as Russians advanced on her hometown, she was raped by Russian soldiers.

She didn’t want anyone to know what happened, according to the Polish NGO that came to her aid. Her husband, who is in the Ukrainian army, was fighting and away from home. Once in Poland, the woman discovered she was pregnant. But getting an abortion in a country with a near-total ban, and navigating this terrain in a new language, was far from simple.

Continued: https://time.com/6188502/ukraine-women-poland-abortion-ban/

US anti-abortion group targets Ukrainian refugees

Heartbeat International is appealing for money to fund its anti-abortion network in Ukraine and eastern Europe

Diana Cariboni
20 June 2022

US anti-abortion group Heartbeat International is taking advantage of Russia’s war in Ukraine to fundraise for ‘crisis pregnancy centres’ targeting refugees, openDemocracy has learnt.

Reproductive health experts fear the group could use its centres in Ukraine, Poland, Hungary and Romania to gain access to vulnerable people and persuade them to continue with unwanted pregnancies.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/heartbeat-exploits-ukraine-fundraising-anti-abortion-rape/

Canada – Ukrainian victims of sexual violence need reproductive health care: Sajjan

Canadian Press
May 29, 2022

OTTAWA — International Development Minister Harjit Sajjan says he told Canadian officials in Ukraine and neighbouring countries to ensure that women sexually assaulted by Russian troops get the help they need — including access to abortions if they wish.

He said pregnant sexual assault victims who have fled Ukraine, where abortion is legal, to Poland, which last year outlawed abortion in most cases, could be helped to travel to elsewhere in Europe.

Continued: https://chatnewstoday.ca/2022/05/29/ukrainian-victims-of-sexual-violence-need-reproductive-health-care-sajjan/

29.05.2022

sexual assault and abortion

Millions of Ukrainians are arriving to a battle over abortion rights in Poland

May 20, 2022
Ari Shapiro, Elena Burnett, Courtney Dorning|
11-minute podcast with transcript

Ukraine has very liberal abortion laws. In Poland, it is almost entirely illegal. Millions of Ukrainians discovered this when they fled the war in their home country and crossed the Polish border.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Imagine stepping across a border and discovering that reproductive rights you once took for granted are now a crime. For millions of Ukrainians, that discovery happened when they fled the war in their home country and set foot here in Poland. Ukraine has very liberal abortion laws. In Poland, it's almost entirely illegal. But while Poland's anti-abortion effort has the weight of the government behind it, there is another movement, one that's secretive, underground and punishable with prison time. You see it right here on the border if you know where to look.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2022/05/20/1100476995/millions-of-ukrainians-are-arriving-to-a-battle-over-abortion-rights-in-poland

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