Council of Europe Committee of Ministers Urges Poland to Guarantee Effective Access to Lawful Abortion Care – Statement

March 12, 2026
Center for Reproductive Rights

GENEVA—This week, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted a decision urging Poland to ensure effective access to lawful abortion without further delay. The Committee expressed continued concern that Poland has yet to fully comply with the European Court of Human Rights’ judgments in the cases of Tysiąc v. Poland, R.R. v. Poland, P. and S. v. Poland, and M.L. v. Poland, which require the authorities to ensure that access to lawful abortion is accessible in practice.

More than 18 years after the first of these landmark judgments became final, systemic barriers remain. Poland’s highly restrictive abortion law and the criminalisation of abortion continue to have a chilling effect on the provision of lawful abortion care. Combined with regulatory gaps, ineffective complaint procedures, frequent refusals of care based on the “conscience clause,” and the stigma surrounding abortion, these barriers leave many women who are legally entitled to abortion unable to access these services in practice. The situation deteriorated further following the regressive Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling in 2020, which effectively imposed a near-total ban on abortion.

Continued: https://reproductiverights.org/news/coe-committee-of-ministers-poland-access-abortion-care/

Justice for Women and Girls: Five Global Wins to Celebrate this International Women’s Day

To mark International Women’s Day and the UN’s 70th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women, the Center is celebrating our biggest wins on securing access to justice for women and girls.

March 6, 2026
Center for Reproductive Rights

Ensuring women’s access to justice is key to the Center’s mission of protecting reproductive rights around the world. It is also a central pillar of International Women’s Day (IWD) and the theme of this year’s session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), taking place March 9-19 at the United Nations.

CSW is an annual opportunity for the global community to take stock of progress on gender equality, to identify challenges and roadblocks, and to set goals for the future. This year Center leaders and partners will join human rights experts on panels across the session, as well as hosting two public side events that examine the intersection of women’s access to justice and their sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Continued: https://reproductiverights.org/news/international-womens-day-five-wins/

06.03.2026

Commentary

A.R. v. Poland

Center for Reproductive Rights

European Court of Human Rights

International Women's Day

Termination of Pregnancy Act

UN Commission on the Status of Women

Europe – The Battle over the Sacred and the Profane

The Increased Contestation of Reproductive Rights in Europe

20 December 2025
Paul Blokker

Sexual and reproductive rights in Europe are increasingly part of an intense struggle. This includes legal contestation through litigation and third-party interventions at, in particular, the European Court of Human Rights. It is however important to recognize that contestation also takes place in other, political and public, arenas. Interconnected actions, forming part of a broader European conservative right mission, includes political and legal action in many other arenas, including in the European as well as national parliaments.

This struggle is about a political and religious backlash to a largely secular, progressive cultural and human rights revolution. It confronts opposing sides of (transnational) civil society, who both make moral, “sacred” claims, while profaning the opponent. Here, I will first discuss the European conservative right’s mission, the sacred dimensions to this mission, and its increasingly dense transnational network. I will then exemplify cases of struggle by turning to initiatives both on the European level (the promotion of a right to abortion as part of the European Charter and the ECI campaign My Voice, My Choice) and domestic parliamentary debates (the Netherlands).

Continued; https://verfassungsblog.de/the-battle-over-the-sacred-and-the-profane/

20.12.2025

Commentary

European Charter of Fundamental Rights

European Court of Human Rights

My Voice My Choice campaign

When Legal Uncertainty Violates Reproductive Rights

A.R. v. Poland and the Dynamics of Transnational Legal Mobilization

27 November 2025
Karolina Kocemba

In 2020, the Polish Constitutional Court prohibited abortion sought on the grounds of fetal defects. While the ruling was announced, it was not published for three months, creating a period during which neither pregnant people nor medical providers could be certain of the current legal situation, which could change at any time. Accordingly, on 13 November 2025, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), in A.R. v. Poland, ruled that this instability failed to meet the legal certainty required under Article 8 of the ECHR. The situation arose from the delayed and, at that time, unpredictably timed publication, and was intensified by the ongoing constitutional crisis.

Crucially, the case reveals a deeper dimension of legal uncertainty, as both pro-choice and anti-choice actors were actively involved in the A.R. case, seeking to shape the law in opposite directions. The resulting uncertainty is thus not only a product of institutional dysfunction but increasingly a terrain of transnational contestation shaped by competing forms of legal mobilization. This dynamic, in turn, is reflected in the European-level initiative My Voice, My Choice, which explicitly aims to stabilise standards where national systems have become fragmented and uncertain.

Continued: https://verfassungsblog.de/legal-uncertainty-reproductive-rights/

European court rules Poland violated rights of woman who traveled abroad for abortion

Nov 13, 2025
Notes on Poland

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that Poland violated the rights of a pregnant woman who had to travel abroad to obtain an abortion after her foetus was diagnosed with a birth defect. It is the second time that the court has issued a judgment against Poland relating to its near-total abortion ban.

The ECHR found that the woman’s right to private and family life was violated by the legal uncertainty created by the delay between the Polish Constitutional Tribunal (TK) ruling of October 2020, which banned abortion in cases of birth defects, and its implementation by the government over three months later.

Continued: https://notesfrompoland.com/2025/11/13/european-court-rules-poland-violated-rights-of-woman-who-traveled-abroad-for-abortion/

LATVIA – Ombudswoman warns that mandatory consultations before abortion would restrict women’s rights

October 20, 2025

The proposal to introduce mandatory consultations for women who wish to terminate a pregnancy raises serious human rights concerns, according to Ombudswoman Karina Palkova.

Through the Office of the Ombudsman, Palkova told LETA that although the initiative is presented as a measure of “support” and “protection of unborn life,” in reality, it affects women’s rights to autonomy, self-determination, and private and family life, and may amount to an indirect coercive mechanism that disproportionately restricts women’s freedom of choice.

Continued: https://bnn-news.com/ombudswoman-warns-that-mandatory-consultations-before-abortion-would-restrict-womens-rights-273276

20.10.2025

News

abortion law reform

Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women

European Court of Human Rights

Karina Palkova

Latvia Office of the Ombudsman

European Commission to consider fund for EU-wide access to abortion

The European Commission will study a proposal to create a fund to help women access safe abortions when they cannot do so in their own countries due to restrictive laws, following a citizens’ campaign that gathered one million signatures across the EU.

By Paula Soler & Marta Iraola Iribarren
Oct 3, 2025

At 26 weeks pregnant, Mirela Čavajda found out her baby had a grave medical condition and would either be born with life-threatening conditions or most likely die before birth.

When Čavajda sought medical support in Zagreb, doctors at four different hospitals refused her request, some without explanation, while others said they could not confirm the diagnosis or did not have the necessary conditions to perform the procedure.

Continued: https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/10/03/european-commission-to-consider-fund-for-eu-wide-access-to-abortion

03.10.2025

News

Andrea Prudente

conscientious objectors

European Commission

European Court of Human Rights

Hadja Lahbib

Izabela death

Mirela Čavajda

My Voice My Choice campaign

A Deafening Silence: The Inter-American Court’s Failure to Address Abortion in in Beatriz v El Salvador

24.07.25
Alicia Ely Yamin, Sabrina Ochoa

As clashes over sexual and reproductive rights are presently used in culture wars and lawfare, the recent decision by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Beatriz v. El Salvador is a missed opportunity to consolidate the Court’s jurisprudence on sexual and reproductive health and rights and defend the legitimacy of international human rights law. Beatriz was a young woman from the impoverished state of Usulután, El Salvador, who, after experiencing a high-risk pregnancy due to Lupus, found herself pregnant a second time. Despite medical consensus among fifteen doctors of the lack of fetal viability and the immediate harm to Beatriz, she was forced to wait in physical and mental anguish for months as various institutional and judicial entities deliberated on whether to allow her doctors to perform a therapeutic abortion.

Continued: https://opiniojuris.org/2025/07/24/a-deafening-silence-the-inter-american-courts-failure-to-address-abortion-in-in-beatriz-v-el-salvador/

Inside Europe’s billion-dollar anti-gender movement

A new report reveals how groups critical of so-called gender ideology across the EU raised $1.18 billion to target abortion, sex education and LGBTQ+ rights.

By Federica Di Sario, Parliament Magazine
26 Jun 2025

For progressives in Europe, 2013 was a year of hope. France adopted historic legislation legalising same-sex marriage. Only a few months later, the UK extended similar rights through the Marriage Act. Portugal implemented a new law to protect transgender rights. And even Ireland — long a Catholic stronghold — introduced new measures to shield queer youth from bullying.

But 2013 also marked a turning point for a group of religious conservatives. Alarmed by what they saw as an erosion of traditional values, they began to mobilise. A decade later, activism once confined to the political fringe has evolved into a billion-euro operation seeking to defeat “gender ideology.”

Continued: https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/news/article/inside-europes-billioneuro-antigender-movement

26.06.2025

Commentary

Aleksandar Vučić

American Center for Law & Justice

Bert-Jan Ruissen

European branch of the Center for Reproductive Rights

European Center for Law and Justice

European Conservatives and Reformists

European Court of Human Rights

European Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality

European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights

French Fonds de dotation GT Editions

gender identity rights

UN experts urge Poland to acquit abortion rights activist awaiting retrial

Nicole D'Souza | U. Auckland Law School, NZ
March 4, 2025

UN experts on Tuesday urged Poland to acquit Justyna Wydrzyńska, a human rights defender and abortion rights activist previously sentenced to eight months of community service.

Advocating for the protection of human rights defenders such as Wydrzyńska, the experts noted the work of individuals like her “remains one of the few avenues for safe abortion in Poland, where access to services to terminate a pregnancy is virtually non-existent in practice”. The group of UN experts urged Poland “to stop targeting human rights defenders – in particular those who speak out against the country’s restrictive abortion law – and to take positive measures to ensure accessible, safe and legal abortion”. The experts also requested Poland to comply with international obligations and amend legislation to decriminalize abortion.

Continued: https://www.jurist.org/news/2025/03/un-experts-urge-poland-to-acquit-abortion-rights-activist-awaiting-retrial/

04.03.2025