‘A matter of life and death’: Activists fight for abortion rights in Poland

During decades of communist rule, Poland had one of the most liberal abortion laws in Europe. But in 1993, four years after the fall of communism, abortion was largely banned because the Catholic Church strongly advocated a complete ban on termination of pregnancy.

25.12.2025

Their baby's heartbeat gave Dorota Lalik and her husband Marcin hope that everything could be fine after all. Dorota, a 33-year-old pharmacist, was rushed to the hospital one Sunday morning when her water broke at 20 weeks pregnant.

in such circumstances, pregnancies are very risky and often unsustainable. Without amniotic fluid, the fetus is at high risk of infections, which can cause sepsis, which can be fatal for the pregnant woman.

But Marcin says that he and Dorota, who was given antibiotics by doctors and advised to rest and keep her legs elevated, were repeatedly assured by hospital staff "that everything looked good and that no one was in danger."

Continued: https://en.vijesti.me/bbc/789015/A-matter-of-life-and-death--activists-fight-for-abortion-rights-in-Poland

A Royal Veto Keeps Abortion Illegal in Monaco

Prince Albert II's decision to reject a popular bill reveals how Catholicism overrides women's rights and public opinion

Diane de Vignemont
December 12, 2025

The news broke quietly, almost casually, on a November morning in the familiar columns of the daily newspaper Monaco-Matin. Between stories on traffic snarls and the ever-impressive celebrations of Monaco’s annual National Day, Prince Albert II of Monaco announced his decision to keep abortion illegal.

“I feel that the current framework respects who we are with regard to the place that the Catholic religion occupies in our country, while ensuring safe and humane support,” the prince said in a statement. His announcement was something of a surprise. Albert II had spent six months deliberating over the long-debated measure that would have legalized abortion in the principality, draft bill no. 267. He had now asked his government “to inform the National Council that its proposed law would not be acted upon.”

Continued: https://newlinesmag.com/essays/a-royal-veto-keeps-abortion-illegal-in-monaco/

Poland marks five years since mass abortion rights protests

22.10.2025

October 22 marks five years since the autumn of 2020, when hundreds of thousands of people poured onto the streets of more than 600 cities and towns across Poland in the largest demonstrations since the Solidarity movement helped bring down communism in 1989.

Across Poland red flares lit up the night as crowds carrying the lightning-bolt symbol of the Women’s Strike filled the streets. Chants against the Catholic Church and the then-ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party echoed across the country - defining images of outrage over a near-total abortion ban.

Continued: https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7784/Artykul/3597197,poland-marks-five-years-since-mass-abortion-rights-protests

Banning abortion is a hallmark of authoritarian regimes

October 16, 2025
Seda Saluk, Assistant Professor of Women's and Gender Studies, University of Michigan

Pregnant women crossing borders to get an abortion. People who miscarry facing jail time or dying from infection. Doctors who won’t perform lifesaving procedures on a pregnant patient for fear of prosecution.
For years, this was the kind of thing that happened in Poland, Nicaragua or El Salvador. Now, it’s headline news in the United States.

As a scholar who studies the relationship between reproductive rights and political regimes, I see the U.S. mirroring a pattern that has happened in authoritarian regimes around the world. When a government erects barriers to comprehensive reproductive care, it doesn’t just cause more death and suffering for women and their families. Such policies are often a first step in the gradual decline of democracies.

Continued: https://theconversation.com/banning-abortion-is-a-hallmark-of-authoritarian-regimes-265459

AUSTRIA – World’s only abortion museum marks 22 years defending reproductive freedom

28 September 2025
By Núria Morchón

Vienna, Sep. 28 (EFE).— The world’s only museum dedicated to contraception and abortion is marking 22 years since its opening in Vienna, continuing to educate new generations on reproductive rights while recalling a past when women risked their lives with knitting needles or toxic substances to end pregnancies.

Founded in 2003 by Austrian gynecologist Christian Fiala, the Museum of Contraception and Abortion (MUVS) seeks to highlight the struggle for fertility control and the importance of safe access to reproductive healthcare at a time when abortion rights remain contested across many countries.

Continued: https://efe.com/en/other-news/2025-09-28/worlds-only-abortion-museum-marks-22-years/

28.09.2025

global day of action for safe and legal abortion

Museum für Verhütung und Schwangerschaftsabbruch

Museum of Contraception and Abortion

Religion often shapes someone’s view of abortion – but what about a woman’s actual decision?

September 25, 2025
Amy Adamczyk

Many factors can shape how someone views abortion – gender, age and education, to name a few. Around the world, however, religious belief is the most powerful predictor that someone will disapprove, as I document in my 2025 book, “Fetal Positions.” Faith traditions’ teachings about abortion vary – and there is diversity of opinions within faiths, too. On average, though, people who say that religion is important in their lives are far more likely to think abortion is morally wrong.

But here’s the paradox: There’s a difference between abstract views and personal decisions. On average, strong religious beliefs and involvement in a religious community do not make an American woman less likely to terminate her first pregnancy, so long as she conceives without a potential marriage partner.

Continued; https://theconversation.com/religion-often-shapes-someones-view-of-abortion-but-what-about-a-womans-actual-decision-265330

25.09.2025

National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health

religion and abortion

Tina Fetner

United States

Religion

Total abortion ban in Dominican Republic has cost women’s lives, social media campaign warns

Artists and activists are telling the stories of women who've died from high-risk pregnancies in a push to add exceptions to the ban.

Aug. 30, 2025
By Carmen Sesin

With a birthday cake in hand, well-known Dominican Republic comedian Carlos Sánchez recounted in an Instagram post how 25-year-old Winifer Núñez Beato died in 2021 after doctors on the island refused to end her high-risk pregnancy because of the country’s total abortion ban.

Núñez Beato left behind a husband and a young daughter. In the video, Sánchez said the cake is not for his birthday, but rather to mark another year where he’s asking for women not to die because of a law that stops doctors from saving their lives.

Sánchez told NBC News he felt compelled to use his platform to raise awareness because “it’s a barbarity that in this day and age a mother has to put her life at risk over a risky pregnancy that could be ended but the law prohibits doctors to do so.”

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/total-abortion-ban-dominican-republic-cost-womens-lives-social-media-c-rcna228070

South Carolina providers push back against faith-based assaults on abortion care

by Emma Akpan
August 14, 2025

… In January 2025, five doctors sued the state of South Carolina against the 2023 Heartbeat Law, which prohibits abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, or after about nine weeks. Their lawsuit is particularly important, as the Heartbeat Law was instrumental in the state Supreme Court's decision to uphold the six-week abortion ban. For these doctors, not only is the decision devastating for patients, but exemplifies why anti-abortion advocates, lawmakers, and religious leaders should not be allowed to use their faith to implement a life-threatening law that doctors must unquestionably follow.

The plaintiffs have therefore inverted faith-based pro-life logic by counter-arguing the questions: Don't doctors who need to administer abortions get to use their faith to challenge such laws? And if the other side can claim conscientiousness to prohibit abortion, then why can't doctors claim conscientiousness to protect their right to perform abortions?

Continued: https://scalawagmagazine.org/2025/08/south-carolina-providers-push-back-against-faith-based-assaults-on-abortion-care/

Pro-LGBTQ+ yet anti-abortion: What’s behind Malta’s differing stances?

The tiny Mediterranean island is one of Europe's most progressive on LGBTQ+ rights, but at the same time, it has a near-total ban on abortion. What is the reason for this dissonance?

By Clea Skopeliti
28/06/2025

When Belle de Jong shared her experience of having an abortion on national TV in Malta in 2021, she became the first woman in the tiny Mediterranean island nation to do so publicly.

The reaction to her interview reflected how this aspect of healthcare remains deeply divisive on the staunchly Catholic island, which has the EU's most restrictive abortion law.

Continued: https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/06/28/pro-lgbtq-yet-anti-abortion-whats-behind-maltas-differing-stances

Inside Mexican Feminists’ Fight For Safe and Legal Abortion

Rebecca Grant on the Battle for Reproductive Freedom in Latin America and Throughout the World

By Rebecca Grant
June 24, 2025

Abortion had been a federal crime in Mexico since 1931, but every state within the country permitted abortion for pregnancies that resulted from rape, and others allowed it if the life of the mother was in danger or in the event of severe fetal anomalies. So when the legislature in Guanajuato, a state in central Mexico, proposed in 2000 to revoke the lone exception to the state’s abortion ban, Verónica “Vero” Cruz thought something along the lines of “Oh hell no.” Eliminating the provision would have resulted in a total ban in a place plagued by sexual violence, and Cruz, a respected activist and the leader of Las Libres, a recently formed feminist collective in Guanajuato, was not about to let the meager sliver of abortion rights that existed in her state shrink any further, or women’s well-being to be used as a political pawn. Something had to be done.

Continued: https://lithub.com/inside-mexican-feminists-fight-for-safe-and-legal-abortion/