Nov 26, 2025
Notes from Poland
One of the leaders of the mass protests against the introduction of a near-total abortion ban in Poland has been denied security clearance by the security services.
As a result, she will not be able to continue working in a government commission investigating surveillance of civil society groups, including her own movement, by the security services under the former Law and Justice (PiS) administration.
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.
22.10.2025
October 22 marks five years since the autumn of 2020, when hundreds of thousands of people poured onto the streets of more than 600 cities and towns across Poland in the largest demonstrations since the Solidarity movement helped bring down communism in 1989.
Across Poland red flares lit up the night as crowds carrying the lightning-bolt symbol of the Women’s Strike filled the streets. Chants against the Catholic Church and the then-ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party echoed across the country - defining images of outrage over a near-total abortion ban.
Jul 17, 2025
Notes from Poland
Three doctors have been handed prison sentences for their negligence in treating a pregnant woman who died in hospital under their care. Her death in 2021 prompted mass protests against Poland’s near-total abortion ban, which had been introduced earlier that year.
The 30-year-old woman, Izabela, was admitted to hospital in the 22th week of her pregnancy following a premature rupture of membranes. Her foetus, which had severe developmental defects, subsequently died, and then so did Izabela herself soon after due to septic shock.
by Petra Dvořáková, Prague
June 20, 2025
Donald Tusk's Polish government has not yet pushed through abortion law reform. In the meantime, opposite the parliament building, feminists have opened an abortion 'clinic', where they face harassment and bullying by anti-abortion activists several times a week — with no protection from the Polish authorities.
“What can I tell you?” shrugs Nikola, a bearded Netflix employee from Bulgaria, when I ask him how he perceives the current political situation. “The whole of Europe is heading towards fascism!” “I’m constantly angry,” adds his Polish partner Anna, who is looking at sweatshirts on a rack next to the window.
Continued: https://euobserver.com/health-and-society/ar6eb25e24
13/06/2025
Piotr Lapinski
Karol Nawrocki, the candidate backed by the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, was elected President of Poland on Sunday 1 June 2025. While this country is one of the most restrictive European states with abortion legislation, this election raises concerns about the future of abortion rights.
13 June 2025. Every year, thousands of women leave Poland to terminate their pregnancies. Those who can’t, do so in unsafe conditions, risking their lives. This well-documented reality was formally recognized in an investigative report published in 2024 by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). The report concluded that the criminalization of abortion assistance, combined with rare legal exceptions and frequent inaccessibility of services, prevents the majority of Polish women from exercising the right to safe and legal abortion.
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.
Five years after near-total ban on abortion, campaigners say Sunday’s elections will be critical to see if promised change happens
Ashifa Kassam, European community affairs correspondent
Thu 15 May 2025
Poland’s presidential elections are a “historic, groundbreaking” chance for Donald Tusk’s centrist party to show it was not trying to “deceive women” when it promised to change some of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws, campaigners have said.
Voters across Poland will head to the polls on Sunday in the first round of the elections to replace Andrzej Duda, the current president who is aligned with the former rightwing government and has veto power over legislation.
Polls have suggested the frontrunner is Rafał Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw, whose centrist Civic Coalition led by the prime minister, Donald Tusk, has promised to relax abortion laws. But in recent weeks his lead has narrowed and support has climbed for Karol Nawrocki of the populist, anti-abortion Law and Justice (PiS) party, suggesting the two could be pitted against each other in a runoff vote on 1 June.
by Barbara Wolk
April 28, 2025
Poland’s abortion debate has once again taken a dangerous turn — this time sparked by far-right MEP Grzegorz Braun, who stormed a Polish hospital to attempt a citizen’s arrest of a doctor performing a medically-indicated late-term abortion. Braun, a presidential hopeful from the extreme-right in the upcoming May elections, accused the doctor of committing “murder,” live-streaming his political stunt to rally his conservative base.
Currently, abortion is only legal in Poland in two circumstances: if the pregnancy is the result of rape (up to 12 weeks), or if the pregnancy poses a threat to the woman's life or health. The third legal reason — severe fetal abnormalities — was abolished in 2020 when the Law and Justice (PiS)-controlled constitutional tribunal ruled it unconstitutional, effectively reducing the number of abortions performed in hospitals by 90 percent. Since then, abortion has become not just a medical issue, but a political weapon of the far-right — used to polarise, control, and distract.
Grzegorz Braun’s actions have been condemned by both the Polish justice minister and the country’s equality minister.
April 18, 2025
By Claudia Chiappa
Far-right European Parliament lawmaker and long-shot Polish presidential candidate Grzegorz Braun is facing a potential investigation after he stormed a hospital on Wednesday and threatened a doctor with a citizen's arrest for performing a legal late-term abortion.
Gizela Jagielska said she was signing some administrative documents when a crowd of about 30 men, led by Braun, burst into the hospital around 11 a.m. She said the men surrounded her, stopped her from leaving and told her she should be arrested.
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