“I had my abortion at 12 weeks and I have also been in an abusive relationship,” the activist said. “Helping her was my first human response.”
By Kylie Cheung
March 28, 2022
More than a year after Poland enacted a near-total abortion ban, the first Polish abortion rights activist to be charged with breaking the law will stand trial this week. Justyna Wydrzyńska, an organizer at Poland’s Abortion Dream Team (ADT), gave a pregnant woman experiencing domestic violence medication abortion pills in February 2020, and now faces up to three years in jail.
Notably, even before Poland’s abortion ban took effect in January 2021, laws dating back to the 1990s prohibited “aiding an abortion,” an ADT spokesperson told The Guardian, and these laws have primarily targeted abortion providers, because for years, surgical abortions were the only option available to people seeking abortion. Since Polish law criminalizes abortion providers but not patients, ADT evaded criminalization by referring people seeking abortion care to international groups that mailed medication abortion pills. But at the onset of the covid pandemic in early 2020, this was no longer an option when Poland’s postal service suspended international packages.
Continued: https://jezebel.com/polish-woman-faces-jail-time-for-sending-pregnant-domes-1848715625