The myth of European abortion access: Why funders must take action this International Safe Abortion Day

Mara Clarke
26 September 2025

Every year, tens of thousands of people in Europe are forced to cross borders, borrow money, or risk unsafe methods just to end a pregnancy. On 28 September, 2025, International Safe Abortion Day is a stark reminder that Europe is far from a haven for abortion access – and that urgent action is needed to counter the rise of right-wing extremism.

‘I am 10 weeks pregnant and have four children. I can’t get to a clinic as I have no one who can watch them. Please can you send me abortion pills?’ – France
‘I have a severely disabled child and the second pregnancy has the same issues – but the doctors here say it should be no problem for me to have a second child with this condition. How can they claim to know my life?’ – Italy

Continued; https://www.alliancemagazine.org/blog/the-myth-of-european-abortion-access-why-funders-must-take-action-this-international-safe-abortion-day/

26.09.2025

Commentary

Abortion Without Borders

International Safe Abortion Day

Mara Clarke

Supporting Abortions for Everyone

Inside a Czech Abortion Network Offering Pregnant Women from Poland a Lifeline

Apr 29, 2025
By Tamara Davison

Eva Ptasková was waiting in a dimly lit parking lot near the Czech-Polish border at 4 a.m. for someone she’d never met.

“It was empty and dark,” Ptasková recalled about the unusual mid-pandemic encounter, adding that she kept her colleague on the phone for safety.

Eventually, a figure exited a taxi and clambered into Ptasková’s car — a woman from Poland, who had traveled to the neighboring Czech Republic for an abortion. With just hours to spare before the appointment, Ptašková listened to the woman recount her life story as they drove through the night. It was the first time the Polish woman, who was already a mother to a young baby, had left her homeland.

Continued: https://www.moretoherstory.com/stories/inside-a-czech-abortion-network-offering-pregnant-women-from-poland-a-lifeline

Malta – ‘Hate Comments Reinforce Importance Of Having These Conversations’: Maltese Writes Of Abortion Play Open Up

By Ana Tortell
February 17, 2025

The writers of the international award-winning play Blanket Ban have opened up about the flurry of hate comments they’ve received over the years.

“The comments, however hurtful, only reinforce the importance of having this conversation,” writers Marta Vella and Davinia Hamilton told Lovin Malta.

Written and performed by Vella and Davinia Hamilton, Blanket Ban is centred around the restrictive abortion laws in Malta and documents real-life stories, shedding light on the reality that thousands of women face.

Continued: https://lovinmalta.com/lifestyle/health/reproductive-health/hate-comments-reinforce-importance-of-having-these-conversations-maltese-writer-of-abortion-play-opens-up/

Given Trump’s win, should Europeans help Americans travel for abortions?

I started the first abortion fund in Europe 15 years ago. Here’s how to support our American and European sisters

Mara Clarke
6 January 2025

Every time there’s news about abortion in the US, my notifications start pinging. In 2017 – “Will you start sending money to people in Texas who need abortions?” In 2019 – “Will you start helping people from Alabama travel for abortions?” When both the leak and the actual overturn of Roe v Wade happened, and when Donald Trump was elected – “Should we set up pathways for people from the US to travel to Europe for abortions?”

The people asking mean well. Like me, they want a world where anyone who needs an abortion can have one, preferably without having to cross state or international lines. Unlike me, most of these people haven’t spent over 20 years helping people failed by states, laws and healthcare systems have abortions.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/trump-us-abortion-ban-pregnant-travel-borders-europe/

06.01.2025

Commentary

abortion pills

Abortion Without Borders

Mara Clarke

National Network of Abortion Funds

Project 2025

self-managed abortion

European abortion fund director discusses state of affairs

Mara Clarke is a longtime abortion activist who cut her teeth in American abortion rights movement. She's helping to lead a new continent that has seen massive changes in recent years.

Cody McDevitt
Nov 23, 2024

Europe has seen challenges to abortion rights as the medical landscape has shifted, and antiabortion reactionism has limited access to the procedure or medication.

Mara Clarke, co-founder of Supporting Abortions for Everyone, an abortion fund known as SAFE for short, spoke with me about the things they’ve sought to do to address the problems brought on by bans and restrictions in different countries. She does a presentation where she dispels the notion that Europe is an “abortion utopia.” “The law is one thing, and access is another,” Clarke said.

Continued: https://reprorights.substack.com/p/european-abortion-fund-director-discusses

23.11.2024

Offences Against the Person Act

prosecuting women for abortion

SAFE

Stray Bodies documentary

Supporting Abortions for Everyone

European Union funds charity that compares abortion to Holocaust

EU hands €1.2m to charity that spreads disinformation about sexual and reproductive rights to teens and women globally

Sian Norris, Soita Khatondi Wepukhulu
3 October 2024

The European Union has given more than a million euros to a charity that peddles anti-abortion misinformation and whose founder compared reproductive rights to the Holocaust, an investigation by openDemocracy can reveal.

The US-based World Youth Alliance (WYA) – which has a European office in Brussels – is officially a “non-religious” non-governmental organisation, yet its values and teachings often echo religious conservative talking points on gender rights.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/eu-funding-anti-abortion-charity/

Anti-abortion activists set to target women at clinics in Italy as new bill approved

Nearly two thirds of gynaecologists in Italy refuse to carry out abortions, according to government statistics

By Joshua Stein
April 27, 2024

Activists opposed to abortion in Italy are expected to ramp up their targeting of clinics after being “emboldened” by an amendment to the law. Pro-abortion activists fear the bill could endanger women across Italy, and lead to harassment as they try to access information and support.

Anti-abortion activists have routinely attended clinics and pressured women to abandon abortions in three separate Italian regions – Piedmont, Veneto and Lombardy – where the local law has already been changed to allow their presence, according to Elena Caruso, an expert in Italian abortion law and fellow at the University of Waterloo in Canada. Now, anti-abortion activists are worried that could spread to other regions.

Continued: https://inews.co.uk/news/world/anti-abortion-activists-target-women-clinics-italy-bill-approved-3027066

Abortion activists deliver invoice to Polish government: you owe us €11.5m

Saturday, April 13, 2024
Women Help Women

Abortion Without Borders has spent more than €11.5m (PLN 49,104,011) in time and money to provide abortion access for Polish residents, without help from the government.

Activists from Abortion Without Borders brought the ‘Polish abortion debt’ to the Sejm (Polish parliament) on Thursday (11 April), presenting an invoice to the government for the costs of time and financial assistance to provide abortion access for Polish residents.

Continued: https://womenhelp.org/en/page/1584/abortion-activists-deliver-invoice-to-polish-government-you-owe-us

As France makes abortion a constitutional right, UK women see sharp rise in abortion convictions

A law dating from 1861 is being used to prosecute women in England and Wales, in at least one case leading to incarceration.

March 4, 2024
By: Lara BULLENS

France has become the only country in the world to protect the right to terminate a pregnancy in its constitution after abortion access was officially added to the freedoms guaranteed in the French constitution on Monday. The move was a direct reaction to the rollback of abortion rights in the United States and elsewhere.

But across the English Channel, women are still at risk of prosecution for having the procedure because abortion in the UK has not been decriminalised. Britain is facing a sharp rise in abortion convictions, with a law dating from 1861 being used to prosecute women and in at least one case leading to incarceration.

Continued: https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20240304-france-abortion-constitution-right-uk-woman-sharp-rise-abortion-convictions-england

The Pain and Promise of Europe’s Abortion Laws

The continent’s abortion laws are a patchwork of progress and setbacks. And for many, accessing the right care at the right time is still a lottery.

BY GRACE BROWNE
JUN 22, 2023

ON MAY 26, 2018, Irish women spilled onto the streets to celebrate a historic win for reproductive rights and bodily autonomy. The staunchly Catholic country had overwhelmingly voted to scrap the Eighth Amendment of the Irish Constitution, under which abortion was essentially illegal—one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the world.

Five years on, the mood has sobered. Under the new laws, those seeking an abortion have to undergo a mandatory waiting period, adhere to strict time limits, and contend with a lack of providers. From 2019 to 2021, 775 people made use of their right to travel freely between the United Kingdom and Ireland to head to Britain to access abortion services. In 2020, despite the pandemic, nearly 200 people still traveled across the Irish Sea to get abortion care in the UK. The Abortion Support Network (ASN), a charity that helps people in Europe access abortion through telemedicine or by supporting travel, says every three days they hear from someone in Ireland looking for help.

Continued: https://www.wired.com/story/europe-abortion-laws/