‘Sculpting within the law’: Where does Poland stand on abortion?

Ada Petriczko
May 12, 2025

WARSAW - Two years after Donald Tusk became Poland's prime minister and promised to reform strict abortion rules, many of the women who supported him are disillusioned and say a May 18 presidential vote is unlikely to bring the change they were promised.

This is despite the fact that a liberal candidate could replace conservative President Andrzej Duda, who has long opposed easing some of Europe's strictest abortion laws.

"I'm still shocked that they reached for our votes when they needed them, and then completely discarded us," said activist Anna Pięta, who helped create a viral campaign that urged women to vote in 2023.

Continued: https://www.context.news/money-power-people/polish-presidential-vote-unlikely-to-resolve-abortion-impasse

Late abortions are rare. The US just lost a clinic that offered the procedure for over 50 years

By KIMBERLEE KRUESI
May 11, 2025

To fellow travelers, Hannah Brehm likely looked like she was taking a belated babymoon well into her third trimester.

But she and her husband had received a crushing diagnosis: Their baby’s brain was not developing properly, upending their wanted pregnancy. Medical experts warned moving forward would likely mean her son would know only pain and suffering. The Minnesota couple wasn’t going to take that chance.

Instead, they went to Colorado, where for decades the Boulder Abortion Clinic served as a resource for women who looked to terminate their pregnancies in the second or third trimester because of medical reasons, like Brehm, or other circumstances.

Continued: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-late-trimester-boulder-clinic-dobbs-56ff9a6998465e4f99b12a80e60b675c

India’s Abortion Laws Offer Pregnant Women an Illusion of Choice

Complicated, overlapping and contradictory legislation places decisions in the hands of the medical and judicial establishments

Sohel Sarkar
September 9, 2024

In October 2023, a 27-year-old woman approached the Supreme Court in India with a petition to terminate her pregnancy, which was over 24 weeks. She had discovered it late and was undergoing treatment for postpartum psychosis following the birth of her second child, which left her without the “physical, mental, psychological and financial” wherewithal to continue with a third pregnancy. A two-judge bench initially ruled in her favor, affirming “the right of a woman over her body.”

Yet the law in India only allows for terminations over 24 weeks in cases of fetal abnormalities or to save the life of the mother, and the case was later reopened after a doctor from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, a premier hospital and medical college in Delhi where the abortion was to be conducted, asked for a court directive on whether a “feticide” could be performed since the fetus, in her words, was “normal.”

Continued: https://newlinesmag.com/argument/indias-abortion-laws-offer-pregnant-women-an-illusion-of-choice/

09.09.2024

Commentary

1940 Drugs and Cosmetics Act

Abubha Rastogi

All India Institute of Medical Sciences

Asia Safe Abortion Partnership

Center for Reproductive Rights

CommonHealth India

conscientious objection

maternal mortality rate

medical boards for abortion

Medical Termination Of Pregnancy (MTP) Act

Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act

sex detection test

Shantilal Shah

Subha Shri Balakrishnan

Suchitra Dalvie

World Health Organization

Will Poland’s New Government Legalize Abortion?

Despite campaign promises, the fight for abortion rights seems far from over.

FEBRUARY 12, 2024
Foreign Policy

After Poland’s parliamentary election in October, many voters were hopeful that the new government would finally scrap the country’s strict abortion law. The law, which had been in place for three decades, was tightened further in 2020, leading to a near-total ban on abortion.

The election ended the eight-year rule of Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS), with the opposition winning enough seats to form a coalition government. In the lead-up to the vote, two of the three groups that made up the opposition—the centrist Civic Coalition and the Left—pledged to legalize abortion up to or through 12 weeks of pregnancy; the former promised to do so within the first 100 days in office.

Continued: https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/02/12/poland-abortion-rights-pro-choice-election-coalition-pis-law-ban/

Post-Roe v. Wade, more patients rely on early prenatal testing as states toughen abortion laws

by: LAURA UNGAR and AMANDA SEITZ, Associated Press
Feb 12, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — In Utah, more of Dr. Cara Heuser’s maternal-fetal medicine patients are requesting early ultrasounds, hoping to detect serious problems in time to choose whether to continue the pregnancy or have an abortion.

In North Carolina, more obstetrics patients of Dr. Clayton Alfonso and his colleagues are relying on early genetic screenings that don’t provide a firm diagnosis.

The reason? New state abortion restrictions mean the clock is ticking.

Continued: https://www.westernslopenow.com/news/national-news/ap-post-roe-v-wade-more-patients-rely-on-early-prenatal-testing-as-states-toughen-abortion-laws/

Poland shows the difficulties of trying to reverse an abortion ban

By Kate Brady and Gerrit De Vynck, Washington Post
January 27, 2024

PRENZLAU, Germany — Only 30 miles separate the two clinics where gynecologist Maria Kubisa works, but what’s legal at her clinic on this side of the border would be criminal at the clinic back in Poland.

So women have been crossing over to seek help from Kubisa on this side, especially in the past three years, since a Polish court backed by a ring-wing government imposed a near-ban on abortion.

Unlocked: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/01/27/poland-abortion-12-weeks-donald-tusk/

Poland’s abortion providers hope for expanded access

The Globe and Mail (BC Edition)
4 Nov 2023
PAUL WALDIE, EUROPE CORRESPONDENT OLESNICA, POLAND

Anyone driving into the Polish town of Olesnica would have a hard time missing the gory message splashed across a billboard near a small church. The sign features a giant image of a bloody, mutilated fetus next to a photograph of the local hospital.

“Dr. Gizela Jagielska on abortions in Olesnica hospital: Yes, that’s right. I do abortions,” reads the stark lettering across the top of the photos.

Continued: https://globe2go.pressreader.com/article/281818583536901

She Sued Tennessee for Denying Her an Abortion. Now She’s Running for Office.

BY CHARLOTTE ALTER
OCTOBER 12, 2023

Allie Phillips never wanted to be a politician, but she had always wanted to be a mom of two. Whenever Phillips asked her 5-year-old daughter, Adalie, what she wanted to be when she grew up, Adalie would say, "A big sister." So when Phillips found out she was pregnant again in Nov. 2022, Adalie was thrilled. "Her eyes got big and her jaw just dropped open," Phillips recalled. "Every night after that, she sang Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star to my belly. She’d kiss my belly every night before bed." Phillips and her husband planned to name the new baby Miley Rose.

But at a routine anatomy scan when she was around 19 weeks pregnant, doctors told Phillips that the fetus had significant problems with its kidney, stomach, bladder, heart, lungs, and brain. These conditions were "not compatible with life outside the womb," a doctor told Phillips. Miley Rose would likely die before birth, and the longer Phillips stayed pregnant, the worse her own health could become. These conditions were "not compatible with life outside the womb," a doctor told Phillips. Miley Rose would likely die before birth, and the longer Phillips stayed pregnant, the worse her own health could become.

Continued: https://time.com/6320148/allie-phillips-abortion-lawsuit-tennessee/

Judge’s order exempts Texas women with complicated pregnancies from state abortion ban

After three women testified last month detailing how the abortion ban delayed medically necessary care, a state district court judge issued a temporary exemption to Texas’ abortion ban in cases when the fetus is unlikely to survive.

BY WILLIAM MELHADO
AUG. 4, 2023

A Texas judge on Friday issued a temporary exemption to the state’s abortion ban that would allow women with complicated pregnancies to obtain the procedure and keep doctors free from prosecution if they determined the fetus will not survive after birth.

State District Court Judge Jessica Mangrum of Austin wrote that the state’s attorney general cannot prosecute doctors who, in their “good faith judgment,” terminate a complicated pregnancy. Mangrum outlined those conditions as a pregnancy that presents a risk of infection; a fetal condition in which the fetus will not survive after birth; or when the pregnant person has a condition that requires regular, invasive treatment.

Continued: https://www.texastribune.org/2023/08/04/texas-abortion-ban-lawsuit/

05.08.2023

News

Amanda Zurawski

Center for Reproductive Rights

complicated pregnancies

Lawyer unfazed by Poland abortion rights case defeat at ECHR

Polish women challenging Warsaw's abortion laws at the European Court of Human Rights had their cases dismissed, but many more are still to come.

Ella Joyner in Brussels
Jun 8, 2023

A Polish lawyer who oversaw the case of eight women challenging their country’s abortion laws at the European Court of Human Rights told DW she was undeterred after their complaints were deemed inadmissible on Thursday.

"We were quite aware that the court might not agree with us at this point," Kamila Ferenc, a lawyer and vice-president of the Polish Foundation for Women and Family Planning (FEDERA), told DW on the phone.

Continued: https://www.dw.com/en/lawyer-unfazed-by-poland-abortion-rights-case-defeat-at-echr/a-65862834