Inside a Czech Abortion Network Offering Pregnant Women from Poland a Lifeline

Apr 29, 2025
By Tamara Davison

Eva Ptasková was waiting in a dimly lit parking lot near the Czech-Polish border at 4 a.m. for someone she’d never met.

“It was empty and dark,” Ptasková recalled about the unusual mid-pandemic encounter, adding that she kept her colleague on the phone for safety.

Eventually, a figure exited a taxi and clambered into Ptasková’s car — a woman from Poland, who had traveled to the neighboring Czech Republic for an abortion. With just hours to spare before the appointment, Ptašková listened to the woman recount her life story as they drove through the night. It was the first time the Polish woman, who was already a mother to a young baby, had left her homeland.

Continued: https://www.moretoherstory.com/stories/inside-a-czech-abortion-network-offering-pregnant-women-from-poland-a-lifeline

Over 5,000 women in Europe have to travel abroad for abortions each year

Legal, bureaucratic and social obstacles are still faced by women, even if they live in countries where abortion is legalised.

7 Apr 2025

THOUSANDS OF WOMEN have to travel to neighbouring countries in Europe to access abortion care due to barriers faced at home.

A cross-border investigation, Exporting Abortion, exposes this stark statistic for the first time, following an extensive examination of data and personal testimonies across Europe.

Our analysis found that more than 5,000 women travel from their home countries every year due to the difficulties they face in accessing abortion care. In 2023, that number was at least 5,860.

Continued: https://www.thejournal.ie/investigates-exporting-abortion-europe-6666436-Apr2025/

Malta – ‘We all know someone who has had an abortion’

The performance is a love letter to Malta

Mar 2, 2025
Esther Lafferty

Acclaimed play Blanket Ban is coming to Spazju Kreattiv this month. Esther Lafferty speaks to writers and actors DAVINIA HAMILTON and MARTA VELLA about the upcoming performance.

This Friday, the long-awaited show Blanket Ban, written and performed by Davinia Hamilton and Marta Vella, arrives on stage at Spazju Kreattiv. It was conceived in 2020, after the first pro-choice rally had taken place in Malta and as assistance from the Abortion Support Network became available in Malta.

“We wanted to contribute to this movement for change and asked ourselves what we could contribute as performers and activists too,” explains Vella.

Continued: https://timesofmalta.com/article/we-know-someone-abortion.1105833

02.03.2025

Film, Art, Books

Abortion Suppo

Abortion Support Network

JD Vance decried as extremist over attack on UK abortion clinic safe zones

US vice-president’s comments, part of a wide-ranging tirade against Europe, called inaccurate and misogynistic

Alexandra Topping
Sat 15 Feb 2025

JD Vance has been labelled an “extremist” after he launched a broadside against the UK’s efforts to protect women seeking an abortion.

The US vice-president’s criticisms of UK and Scottish policies on safe access zones around abortion clinics – part of a wide-ranging tirade against Europe on Friday – were derided as inaccurate and misogynistic by a number of groups, politicians and governments.

Heidi Stewart, the chief executive of Bpas, the UK’s leading provider of abortion services, said safe zones – buffer areas of 150 metres around abortion clinics designed to stop women being harassed with leaflets, shown pictures of foetuses, or having to pass by vigils – were vital to protect women’s access to essential healthcare in an “overwhelmingly pro-choice country”.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/15/jd-vance-decried-as-extremist-over-attack-on-uk-abortion-clinic-safe-zones

Siege days are over: how Northern Ireland came to lead the UK on abortion

The chilling atmosphere of pickets and protests at clinics has given way to a new ‘gold standard’ of care

Rory Carroll, Ireland correspondent
Thu 21 Mar 2024

The family planning advisers at Shaftesbury Square still remember the days of siege when anti-abortion protesters staked out the front and rear entrance of their office in central Belfast.

Some pickets would splash holy water on the doors and daub salt crosses on the pavement while others would thrust leaflets with pictures of babies and foetuses at woman entering or leaving the building, and sometimes follow them.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/21/how-northern-ireland-came-to-lead-the-uk-on-abortion

Malta – Forty, pregnant, and seeking an abortion

A trend is emerging in Malta among women aged 40 and over, who already have children and who experience unintended pregnancies despite using contraception. The Journal catches up with Doctors for Choice - Malta’s Dr Natalie Psaila.

The Journal
Jan 16, 2024

If you think that unwanted pregnancies are exclusive to teenagers, think again.
“An emerging trend that we’re observing is among individuals aged 40 and over, who already have children, who say that they have used contraception, but still experience unintended pregnancies,” reveals Dr Natalie Psaila, a Maltese doctor who make it to the BBC’s top 100 inspirational women in 2023.

These women confirm using CE certified condoms but, despite these precautions, they still get pregnant, she pointed out. “These condoms shouldn’t fail easily but no contraceptive is fail-proof. This is why these couples are getting pregnant. Condoms have about 10% failure rate. Something like the pull-out method – a favourite with the Maltese – has a 40% failure rate.”

Continued: https://thejournal.mt/forty-pregnant-and-seeking-an-abortion/

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

The Pain and Promise of Europe’s Abortion Laws

The continent’s abortion laws are a patchwork of progress and setbacks. And for many, accessing the right care at the right time is still a lottery.

BY GRACE BROWNE
JUN 22, 2023

ON MAY 26, 2018, Irish women spilled onto the streets to celebrate a historic win for reproductive rights and bodily autonomy. The staunchly Catholic country had overwhelmingly voted to scrap the Eighth Amendment of the Irish Constitution, under which abortion was essentially illegal—one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the world.

Five years on, the mood has sobered. Under the new laws, those seeking an abortion have to undergo a mandatory waiting period, adhere to strict time limits, and contend with a lack of providers. From 2019 to 2021, 775 people made use of their right to travel freely between the United Kingdom and Ireland to head to Britain to access abortion services. In 2020, despite the pandemic, nearly 200 people still traveled across the Irish Sea to get abortion care in the UK. The Abortion Support Network (ASN), a charity that helps people in Europe access abortion through telemedicine or by supporting travel, says every three days they hear from someone in Ireland looking for help.

Continued: https://www.wired.com/story/europe-abortion-laws/

Activists’ network in Mexico helps U.S. women get abortions

A network of abortion-rights activists in Mexico is finding ways to offer assistance -- including shipments of abortion pills -- to women in the United States affected by recently imposed abortion bans in several states

By MARÍA TERESA HERNÁNDEZ, Associated Press
April 2, 2023

CHIHUAHUA, Mexico -- Marcela Castro’s office in Chihuahua is more than 100 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, yet the distance doesn’t prevent her from assisting women in the United States in circumventing recently imposed bans on abortion.

From the headquarters of Marea Verde Chihuahua, an organization that has supported reproductive rights in northern Mexico since 2018, Castro and her colleagues provide virtual guidance, as well as shipments of abortion pills for women who want to terminate a pregnancy on their own.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/activists-network-mexico-helps-us-women-abortions-98299876

Texas – El Paso woman defies state abortion bans

by Victoria Rossi
December 11, 2022

Ruth runs through a checklist as she packs. There’s ginger chews for nausea, chamomile tea for calm, two thick pads for bleeding. Inside seed packets of cantaloupes, cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers, she slips two smaller plastic baggies containing abortion pills, which she’s labeled by hand.

A few months earlier, Ruth would feel her heart pound as she assembled the kits, a rush of adrenaline as she drove to mail them, wondering if she’d get stopped – and if stopped, arrested. Now, she said, “The fear is gone. And I’m just at righteous indignation.”

Continued: https://elpasomatters.org/2022/12/11/el-paso-texas-woman-distributing-abortion-pills-defies-bans/