Abortion Dream Team review – dynamic study of activists resisting Poland’s near-total ban

Karolina Domagalska’s film follows the tireless work of an activist group founded to battle the country’s legislation against reproductive rights

Phuong Le
Mon 14 Apr 2025

Under Poland’s near-total abortion ban, a group of courageous activists step up for women’s autonomy. Deploying a fly-on-the-wall approach, Karolina Domagalska’s dynamic film closely follows the tireless efforts of Abortion Dream Team (ADT), an advocacy group founded in 2016. Forming a staunch resistance to oppressive legislation, they provide medical consultancy and assistance to tens of thousands of women who can no longer access abortion services legally.

The hotline never stops ringing. Abandoned by the healthcare system, women from all over Poland reach out to the ADT volunteers, who guide them through these moments of uncertainty and confusion with extraordinary care. In addition to abortion pills and emergency contraceptives, the group also provides logistics support to those who need to travel to other countries for critical procedures. Every day comes not only with this flood of cries for help, but also an onslaught of threats and abuse from anti-abortion supporters. In one harrowing scene, the activists confront a group of policemen about a moving bus plastered with the faces of ADT associates, branding them as so-called murderers. The law, however, is not on their side. Justyna, one of their core members, was put on trial and convicted for distributing abortion pills.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/apr/14/abortion-dream-team-review-dynamic-study-of-polish-activists


Polish documentary on abortion rights now available globally

April 8, 2025

Since April 8, the documentary You Are Not Alone, directed by Karolina Lucyna Domagalska, has been available to stream on Prime Video via the Viaplay Films & Series channel.

The film offers a powerful look at a pivotal moment in Poland’s recent social and political history - the fight for reproductive rights under one of the world’s most restrictive abortion laws.

Continued: https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7789/Artykul/3507840,polish-documentary-on-abortion-rights-activists-now-streaming-globally


Activists Open Abortion Clinic Opposite Polish Parliament

Claudia Ciobanu, Warsaw, BIRN
March 10, 2025

In a challenge to Poland’s government, which has failed to legalise abortion despite its election promises, activists have opened a clinic in the centre of Warsaw where women can receive support when taking abortion pills.

“We want every person coming here to have the feeling they are surrounded by trust and care, that this is a safe place. We have the knowledge, we have the experience, we really can help with abortions,” said Justyna Wydrzynska, one of the founders of a Warsaw clinic that opened on Friday as a place where women can come to perform a medical abortion or consult on other termination options.

Continued: https://balkaninsight.com/2025/03/10/activists-open-abortion-clinic-opposite-polish-parliament/


Across from parliament, Poland’s first abortion centre opens

Bernard OSSER
Mar 7, 2025

As Poland's first abortion centre opened on Friday the choice of location was nothing short of symbolic: just opposite the parliament that failed to follow through on its pledges to relax the country's stringent abortion laws.

Poland has a near-total ban on abortion but in an act of defiance, the activists decided to put pressure on lawmakers by launching a space near the chamber where women considering terminating their pregnancy can get help to do so.

"This is a historic moment in the 32-year history of democratic Poland, because no one had ever managed to do it before," the centre's coordinator Anna Pieta said, her voice shaking. 

Continued: https://www.wfxg.com/news/across-from-parliament-polands-first-abortion-centre-opens/article_8ee7ea64-3b52-53a7-a4ec-ae6aa0f7e749.html


‘There’s no other solution’: Polish abortion centre opens in challenge to strict laws

Frustrated by government’s failure to ease rules, an NGO is opening a centre a stone’s throw from parliament in Warsaw

Ashifa Kassam
Fri 7 Mar 2025

They poured on to streets across Poland in their hundreds of thousands, carrying placards reading “The revolution has a uterus” and “My body, my choice”. In late 2023 they helped vote in a prime minister who promised a swift overhaul of the country’s draconian abortion laws.

Now, after more than a year of stalled promises, Polish abortion campaigners are taking matters into their own hands, setting up a pregnancy termination centre on one of the country’s corridors of power.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/07/polish-abortion-centre-opens-strict-laws-warsaw


Poland has a strict abortion law – and many abortions. Lawmakers are now tackling the legislation

By Vanessa Gera, The Associated Press
April 11, 2024

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s parliament held a long-awaited debate Thursday on liberalizing the country’s strict abortion law. The traditionally Catholic nation has one of the most restrictive laws in Europe, but many women terminate pregnancies at home with pills mailed from abroad.

Lawmakers in the lower house of parliament considered four proposals and will vote Friday on whether to send them for further work.

Continued: https://apnews.com/article/poland-abortion-law-tusk-b70785a371f16d781906463dbb7ab688


UK – The fight to repeal one of the most outdated abortion laws in the world

By Sana Noor Haq and Niamh Kennedy, CNN

Fri June 23, 2023

Hundreds of protesters lined the street outside the UK’s High Court on Saturday holding picket signs that read “Our bodies, Our right to decide,” before marching through the streets of central London demanding reformed abortion laws for women in England and Wales.

Earlier this month, a British woman who used medication to terminate a pregnancy after the UK’s legally allowed limit was sentenced to 28 months in prison under Victorian-era legislation, in a case that has sparked calls for an overhaul of reproductive justice laws in the country. The woman, who has three children, will serve 14 months in custody and the remainder on license after her release.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/23/uk/abortion-decriminalization-reproductive-justice-protests-intl-gbr/index.html


Guilty of abetting abortion, Polish woman vows to fight on

By LORNE COOK
Mar 24, 2023

BRUSSELS (AP) — The way Justyna Wydrzyńska sees it, Ania was a victim of domestic violence just like she was. Another child and she’d be trapped. It was 2020. The pandemic lockdowns. Everyone worried that Poland’s borders might close, halting travel and postal services.

Looking to help someone she identified with, Wydrzyńska gave Ania the abortion pills she kept on hand for herself. “I just sent the pills, just shared them, because I thought it would be good for her to have this tool and decide whatever she wants (and can) leave without another kid and be able to get free from this violent relationship,” Wydrzyńska told The Associated Press in Brussels on Thursday.

Continued: https://apnews.com/article/poland-abortion-rights-activist-court-justice-eu-4510931835c2d950ca73535657267d41


Polish activist found guilty in abortion case to appeal sentence

Justyna Wydrzynska was convicted on Tuesday, three years after providing a woman with abortion pills.

By Gouri Sharma
Published On 15 Mar 2023

A Polish activist found guilty of facilitating an abortion has told Al Jazeera that she plans to appeal her sentence in a case that is testing the nation’s strict abortion laws.

On Tuesday, a court in the capital, Warsaw, convicted Justyna Wydrzynska three years after she sent the pills to a woman who was reportedly in an abusive relationship. Alongside eight months of community service, she was handed a fine, and will now have a criminal record.

Continued: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/3/15/polish-activist-found-guilty-in-abortion-case-to-appeal-sentence


‘Necessary to Disobey Harmful Laws’: These ‘Abortion Pirates’ Want Equal Access to Abortion Pills Worldwide

A colorful crowd of doctors, researchers and women’s activists convened in the Latvian capital to explore ways to use pills to circumvent anti-abortion laws.

By EMILY SCHULTHEIS
11/26/2022

RIGA, Latvia — For two sunny, crisp autumn days in mid-September, Riga’s Stradiņš University felt like the epicenter of a self-styled global civil rights movement: to give every person, in every culture or country, regardless of laws, access to abortion pills.

In the hallways, women pored over posters showing the latest research on the effectiveness of abortion pills and other developments in abortion and contraception care. Representatives from pharmaceutical companies enthusiastically pitched their medications and products to doctors sipping coffee and tea during a break between panels. There were graphic novels about an at-home medical abortion and T-shirts printed with women’s self-stated reasons for ending a pregnancy; there were slogans printed on T-shirts like “Make Abortion Legal Again” and a video promoting abortion rights to the tune of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance.”

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/11/26/global-abortion-rights-movement-latvia-00069224