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

Abortion in Europe: a right for some, a fight for millions of others

January 21, 2025
A European Perspective, European Broadcasting Union

Reproductive rights have been at the centre of political debates worldwide in recent months. As US President Donald Trump takes office following a campaign where access to abortion was a central theme, Europe too finds itself at a crossroads between liberal policies and restrictive laws.

As pro-life movements gain traction across the globe, campaigners are seeking an EU-wide guarantee to safe abortion access. From Hungary to Italy, France, Switzerland and beyond, we look at abortion rights from A European Perspective.

Continued: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/life-aging/abortion-in-europe-a-right-for-some-a-fight-for-millions-of-others/88749102

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

Poland’s Government Requests Czechia Stop Offering Abortions to Polish Women

A secretary of state at Poland’s Foreign Ministry said abortions offered to Polish women in Czech clinics are “an encouragement to violate the rights of Polish citizens” and could affect bilateral relations.

Claudia Ciobanu, Warsaw
May 3, 2021

The Polish government on Monday confirmed a report by the Czech weekly Respekt that a representative of the Polish embassy in Prague had sent a letter to the Czech health minister in March asking him to intervene to block legislation being debated by the Czech parliament that would clarify the terms under which foreigners can get abortions in the country.

The intervention by the Polish chargé d’affaires in Prague, described as diplomatically unusual by a Czech deputy minister for legislation, indicates that the right-wing Law and Justice-led (PiS) government is now looking to prevent Polish women from seeking a termination abroad after it engineered a near-total ban on abortion at home. On October 22, the Constitutional Tribunal, which has been illegally stuffed with PiS-friendly judges, ruled that abortions in the case of a malformation of the foetus are unconstitutional.

Continued: https://balkaninsight.com/2021/05/03/polands-government-requests-czechia-stop-offering-abortions-to-polish-women/

Polish women travel abroad for abortions ahead of law change

Support services in Poland and abroad say numbers increasing even before legislation is tightened

Shaun Walker and Anna Koslerova in Prague
Sun 13 Dec 2020

Polish women are increasingly being forced to travel abroad to seek abortions even though a court ruling to tighten the country’s already strict laws has not yet coming into force, activists have said.

The constitutional court ruled in October
that abortion was illegal even in cases where there were severe foetal
abnormalities. Around 1,000 abortions a year – almost all of the country’s
legal abortion procedures – are carried out for this reason.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/13/polish-women-travel-abroad-for-abortions-ahead-of-new-law

Auntie Czech to help Polish women deprived of abortion rights

Angered and disappointed with the recent anti-abortion court ruling in her home country, a young Polish artist living in the Czech Republic is organising help for her compatriots.

Anja Vladisavljevic, Zagreb
November 9, 2020

“Sadness, big sadness, disappointment… and anger”: that's what a Polish artist residing in the Czech capital, Jolanta Nowaczyk, felt when she learnt last month about the anti-abortion court ruling in her home country.

Soon after the controversial court decision on October 22, which effectively outlaws abortion by banning terminations where the foetus is severely damaged or malformed, Nowaczyk organised a protest in front of the Polish embassy in Prague. But that was not the only action she took: Nowaczyk is now also launching an initiative that aims to help Polish women needing an abortion to come to the Czech Republic for the procedure.

Continued: https://balkaninsight.com/2020/11/09/auntie-czech-to-help-polish-women-deprived-of-abortion-rights/