The Abortion Ban That Didn’t End Abortion in Poland

Five years after Poland's top court gutted abortion rights, access to legal procedures has quietly expanded – but only for women who learned to work within a system designed to say ‘no’.

Ada Petriczko
February 4, 2026

Edyta was 29 weeks pregnant when the MRI results came back. She opened the report in a hospital corridor in Warsaw. Missing temporal bone. Disrupted neuronal migration. Abnormalities in the corpus callosum.

“I just stood there. I couldn’t move,” she tells BIRN. “The entire pregnancy everyone kept saying nothing was wrong – and then suddenly my baby's brain wasn’t developing normally.”

Continued: https://balkaninsight.com/2026/02/04/polands-precarious-post-abortion-ban-compromise-leaves-women-at-mercy-of-the-system/

‘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

Polish activists say new abortion guidelines not good enough

Prime Minister Donald Tusk has resorted to stopgap measures to placate women's rights activists after he was unable to fulfill his promise to liberalize the country's restrictive abortion law.

Monika Margraf in Warsaw
Aug 17, 2024

"I remember when only 50 people came to my protests in defense of women's rights in 2016," said Anna Sikora. "After four years, almost 2,000 people took part in the protests. Most of them also took part in the last parliamentary elections as I called on them to do."

Sikora, a mother of two from the central city of Sieradz, is a left-wing activist and local leader of women's protests that have swept Poland and mobilized women against the Catholic-conservative Law and Justice party (PiS), which led the country from 2016 to 2023. Their hopes for changes to the abortion law made the party's electoral defeat possible in fall of 2023.

Continued: https://www.dw.com/en/polish-activists-say-new-abortion-guidelines-not-good-enough/a-69964722

Death of pregnant woman that sparked protests in Poland was unrelated to abortion law, say prosecutors

NOV 16, 2023
Notes from Poland

Prosecutors investigating the death of a pregnant woman in hospital – which sparked mass protests against Poland’s near-total ban on abortion – have concluded that the tragedy was unrelated to the abortion law.

The woman, Izabela, died in September 2021 after being brought to hospital in the 20th week of her pregnancy following a premature rupture of membranes. Her foetus subsequently died, and then so did Izabela herself soon after due to septic shock.

Continued: https://notesfrompoland.com/2023/11/16/death-of-pregnant-woman-that-sparked-protests-in-poland-was-unrelated-to-abortion-law-say-prosecutors/

16.11.2023

Law and Justice party

maternal death

Supreme Medical Chamber

6 Stories Show the Human Toll of Poland’s Strict Abortion Laws

By Anna Pamula | Photographs by Kasia Strek for TIME
OCTOBER 13, 2023

Krzysztof Sowinski has cried every day since his wife Marta, who was five months pregnant, died of sepsis in 2022; he believes doctors put Marta’s life in danger by not giving them the option to terminate the pregnancy while the fetus’ heart was still beating. Janusz Kucharski also lost his partner Justyna to sepsis in the fifth month of a pregnancy. She left behind two boys.

It is likely, reproductive-rights advocates say, that these women would be alive if not for Poland's increasingly restrictive abortion laws. Abortion has been illegal in the country since 1993, but a 2020 ruling by Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal, which went into effect the next year, removed one of the exceptions to the law—fetal abnormalities—and imposed a near-total ban on abortion. Now women can terminate a pregnancy only if the women’s life or health is at risk (including mental health risks with a psychiatric diagnosis) or if there is reasonable suspicion that the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest.

Continued: https://time.com/6320172/poland-abortion-laws-maternal-health-care/

13.10.2023

Commentary

abortion stories

Barbara Zientek

Bartlomiej Chmielowiec

Debski Clinic

Dorota Lalik

Dr. Gizela Jagielska

Dr. Katarzyna Szamotulska

Dr. Krzysztof Preis

European Court of Human Rights

FEDERA

Foundation for Women and Family Planning

Law and Justice party

Mother and Child Institute

Poland Constitutional Tribunal

Poland’s Office for Patients' Rights

total abortion ban

U.N. Committee Against Torture

Not one more’ woman can fall victim to Poland’s abortion laws

Women must be able to count on the EU to protect them — especially when their own governments are the ones endangering their lives.

BY ROBERT BIEDROŃ
DECEMBER 31, 2022
(Robert Biedroń is a member of the European Parliament and chair of the FEMM Committee on women’s rights and gender equality.)

During the Cold War, women from Western Europe would travel behind the Iron Curtain to access free and legal abortion services in Poland. However, the tables have since turned.

For the last 30 years, Polish women have been subject to increasingly restrictive abortion laws, culminating in the Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling, which introduced a near-total abortion ban in 2020, leaving them with fewer sexual reproductive health rights than in fundamentalist states like Iran.

Continued: https://www.politico.eu/article/women-victim-poland-abortion-laws/

Strict new abortion laws ignite debate in Poland and expose kinship with U.S.

“For the for the majority of women, it’s not accessible,” the executive director of Poland’s Federation for Women and Family Planning told NBC News.

Dec. 22, 2022
By Matt Bradley, Ewa Galica and Mo Abbas

WARSAW, Poland — Standing in a near-empty rural cemetery, Barbara Skrobol braced against the cold and a potential confrontation: The local priest, she said, doesn’t like the journalists and activists she regularly parades past her sister-in-law’s grave.

“She just wanted to live,” Skrobol said of her brother’s wife, Izabela Sajbor, who died last year from sepsis at the age of 30. An abortion could have saved her life, she said. “We blame not only the doctors because they made a mistake, but we blame the politicians who implemented this law.”

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/strict-new-abortion-laws-ignite-debate-poland-expose-kinship-us-rcna60654

Poland’s de facto abortion ban risks lives, says MEP

By Clara Bauer-Babef and Eleonora Vasques | EURACTIV.com
Nov 18, 2022

While technically allowed in some cases, abortion in Poland may as well be forbidden, putting women’s lives at risk, said Robert Biedron, EU lawmaker and leader of the Polish opposition party Nowa Lewica on Thursday (17 November).

Two years ago, Poland’s constitutional court approved a highly-restrictive new law that de facto banned abortion. Only 107 legal abortions were performed in 2021, approximately 90% less than in previous years, according to figures published by the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita.

Continued: https://www.euractiv.com/section/health-consumers/news/polands-de-facto-abortion-ban-risks-lives-says-mep/

Poland abortion ban victim’s family says ‘nobody cared about her life’

By Isabel da Silva
Updated: 18/11/2022

The family of a Polish woman that died due to Poland's restrictive rules on abortion have spoken out about her ordeal.

Izabela Sajbor, 30, died of septic shock last year when she was 22 weeks pregnant.

Thousands took to the streets to protest the victim of the country's near-total abortion ban, which was approved in October 2020.

Continued: https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/11/17/nobody-cared-about-her-life-family-of-polish-abortion-ban-victim-speak-out

By Isabel da Silva
Updated: 18/11/2022

The family of a Polish woman that died due to Poland's restrictive rules on abortion have spoken out about her ordeal.

Izabela Sajbor, 30, died of septic shock last year when she was 22 weeks pregnant.

Thousands took to the streets to protest the victim of the country's near-total abortion ban, which was approved in October 2020.

Continued: https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/11/17/nobody-cared-about-her-life-family-of-polish-abortion-ban-victim-speak-out

Poland has some of the strictest abortion laws in Europe. Izabela Sajbor’s family say those laws are responsible for her death

By Saskya Vandoorne and Melissa Bell, CNN
Wed June 29, 2022

Warsaw, Poland (CNN) Izabela Sajbor knew for weeks that the baby she was carrying was unlikely to live long. On September 22 last year, she realized both their fates were sealed.

"I hope I won't get sepsis because then I won't leave this place," the 30-year-old wrote in a series of distraught text messages to her mother, just 12 hours before she died.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/28/europe/poland-abortion-law-izabela-sajbor-death-intl-cmd/index.html