M.L. v. Poland

March 12, 2026
Center for Reproductive Rights

GENEVA—This week, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted a decision urging Poland to ensure effective access to lawful abortion without further delay. The Committee expressed continued concern that Poland has yet to fully comply with the European Court of Human Rights’ judgments in the cases of Tysiąc v. Poland, R.R. v. Poland, P. and S. v. Poland, and M.L. v. Poland, which require the authorities to ensure that access to lawful abortion is accessible in practice.

More than 18 years after the first of these landmark judgments became final, systemic barriers remain. Poland’s highly restrictive abortion law and the criminalisation of abortion continue to have a chilling effect on the provision of lawful abortion care. Combined with regulatory gaps, ineffective complaint procedures, frequent refusals of care based on the “conscience clause,” and the stigma surrounding abortion, these barriers leave many women who are legally entitled to abortion unable to access these services in practice. The situation deteriorated further following the regressive Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling in 2020, which effectively imposed a near-total ban on abortion.

Continued: https://reproductiverights.org/news/coe-committee-of-ministers-poland-access-abortion-care/

A.R. v. Poland and the Dynamics of Transnational Legal Mobilization

27 November 2025
Karolina Kocemba

In 2020, the Polish Constitutional Court prohibited abortion sought on the grounds of fetal defects. While the ruling was announced, it was not published for three months, creating a period during which neither pregnant people nor medical providers could be certain of the current legal situation, which could change at any time. Accordingly, on 13 November 2025, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), in A.R. v. Poland, ruled that this instability failed to meet the legal certainty required under Article 8 of the ECHR. The situation arose from the delayed and, at that time, unpredictably timed publication, and was intensified by the ongoing constitutional crisis.

Crucially, the case reveals a deeper dimension of legal uncertainty, as both pro-choice and anti-choice actors were actively involved in the A.R. case, seeking to shape the law in opposite directions. The resulting uncertainty is thus not only a product of institutional dysfunction but increasingly a terrain of transnational contestation shaped by competing forms of legal mobilization. This dynamic, in turn, is reflected in the European-level initiative My Voice, My Choice, which explicitly aims to stabilise standards where national systems have become fragmented and uncertain.

Continued: https://verfassungsblog.de/legal-uncertainty-reproductive-rights/

Council of Europe Committee of Ministers Urges Poland to Guarantee Effective Access to Lawful Abortion Care – Statement

When Legal Uncertainty Violates Reproductive Rights