Europe votes to expand abortion access in historic ballot

The vote could pave the way for funding thousands of European women who travel every year to another EU country to access abortion care.

December 17, 2025
By Claudia Chiappa

STRASBOURG — The European Parliament voted today in support of an EU fund to expand access to abortion for women across the bloc, in a historic ballot that divided lawmakers.

The plan would establish a voluntary, opt-in financial mechanism to help countries provide abortion care to women who can’t access it in their own country and who choose to travel to one with more liberal laws. European citizens presented the plan in an EU petition — through the campaign group “My Voice, My Choice.”
Continued: https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-votes-to-expand-abortion-access-in-historic-vote/

17.12.2025

Joanna Scheuring-Wielgus

My Voice My Choice campaign

Nawrocki win is ‘devastating blow’ for abortion rights activists in Poland

Any hopes to liberalize the country’s strict abortion rules are lost as the nationalist candidate secured a narrow win.

June 3, 2025
By Claudia Chiappa

Lawmakers and activists are warning that nationalist candidate Karol Nawrocki’s win in the Polish presidential election represents a “defeat” for women’s rights and further threatens abortion access in Poland.

Nawrocki, a self-described football hooligan backed by the right-wing nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party — and by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration — won Poland’s presidential election last weekend, narrowly beating centrist Rafał Trzaskowski.

Continued: https://www.politico.eu/article/nawrocki-win-is-devastating-blow-for-abortion-rights-activists-in-poland/

Europe – MEPs demand answers over EU funding of anti-abortion charity

Politicians express concern after openDemocracy revealed EU gave €1.2m to group spreading reproductive disinformation

Sian Norris
19 December 2024

Members of the European Parliament have demanded answers over the European Union’s funding of an anti-abortion organisation.

Earlier this year, openDemocracy revealed the EU’s Erasmus+ programme had handed €1.2m to the World Youth Alliance (WYA), a US-based charity that promotes anti-abortion disinformation.

Now, politicians from Poland, Germany, Sweden and Slovakia have urged the European Commission to “commit to reviewing and potentially halting EU funding for organisations that oppose reproductive freedom”.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/eu-anti-abortion-funding-questions-world-youth-alliance-erasmus/

Polish Supreme Court acquits politician of offending religious feelings in church abortion protest

Aug 2, 2024
Notes from Poland

Poland’s Supreme Court has thrown out a case against a deputy government minister launched almost three years ago, when she was an opposition politician, over a protest she held in a church against the introduction of a near-total abortion ban.

She was accused of offending religious feelings and maliciously interfering with the public performance of a religious act, both crimes in Poland that each carry prison sentences of up to two years.

The politician in question, deputy culture minister Joanna Scheuring-Wielgus, celebrated the end of the long-running case. But she also criticised the actions of prosecutors under the former national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government for pursuing charges against her.

Continued: https://notesfrompoland.com/2024/08/02/polish-supreme-court-acquits-politician-of-offending-religious-feelings-in-church-abortion-protest/

Poland: Lawmaker Faces Charges for Pro-Choice Protest

Targeting MP Escalates Attacks on Women’s Rights, Free Speech

December 4, 2022

(Berlin) – Poland’s government should immediately drop charges against a member of parliament who participated in a pro-choice protest and stop targeting reproductive rights activists, Human Rights Watch said today.

On November 29, 2022, the Toruń prosecutor’s office charged Joanna Scheuring-Wielgus, a member of the Left (Lewica) party, with “offending religious feelings” and “malicious interference with religious worship.” Each offense carries a penalty of up to two years in prison. She pleaded not guilty.

Continued: https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/12/04/poland-lawmaker-faces-charges-pro-choice-protest

Thousands in Warsaw Join Biggest Protest so far Against Abortion Ruling

By Reuters
October 30, 2020

WARSAW, POLAND - Tens of thousands of Poles joined a march Friday in Warsaw, the biggest in nine days of protests against a ruling by the country's top court last week that amounted to a near-total ban on abortion in the predominantly Catholic nation.

Defying strict rules that restrict gatherings to five people during the coronavirus pandemic, demonstrators walked through central Warsaw streets carrying black umbrellas, a symbol of abortion rights protests in Poland, and banners that read "I think, I feel, I decide" or "God is a woman."

Continued: https://www.voanews.com/europe/thousands-warsaw-join-biggest-protest-so-far-against-abortion-ruling

Row over ruling on ‘eugenic abortion’ disturbs Lower House session

27.10.2020

Tuesday’s Lower House proceedings were disrupted by opposition MPs of the Left (Lewica) and Civic Coalition (KO) who protested the Constitutional Court’s ruling on “eugenic abortion” that had triggered public protests in some major Polish cities. The misconduct urged the deputy Lower House speaker to call for the guards to alleviate the tense situation.

The Lower House two-days-long session begun on Tuesday with the house’s Deputy Speaker Ryszard Terlecki of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party commenting on Left and KO MPs’ facemasks that were marked with the Red Lightning – the symbol of the Women’s Strike movement that has been protesting the ruling of the Constitutional Court on “eugenic abortion” for the past couple of days.

Continued: https://polandin.com/50520063/row-over-ruling-on-eugenic-abortion-disturbs-lower-house-session

Hundreds protest plan to further restrict abortion in Poland

Hundreds protest plan to further restrict abortion in Poland

By The Associated Press
WARSAW, Poland — Jul 2, 2018

Hundreds of abortion-rights activists in Poland held a protest Monday against a proposed law that would ban abortions in cases involving irreparably damaged fetuses.

The activists who assembled outside Poland's parliament chanted "We want choice, not terror" as a special commission of legislators reviewed the proposal.

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/hundreds-protest-plan-restrict-abortion-poland-56319222

02.07.2018