Polish election: Tusk party urged to show it is not ‘deceiving women’ on abortion

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.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/15/poland-elections-tusk-centrists-abortion-laws-campaign-europe

A tale of two conferences: women against women as ‘poison of patriarchy’ returns and abortion fight intensifies

Last week, anti-choice campaigners emboldened by current US politics met in New York at the same time as UN delegates gathered to address the widespread inequalities women face. The battle to protect rights has never felt more urgent

Isabel Choat in New York, The Guardian
Sat 22 Mar 2025

In a meeting room on the 27th floor of a swish Manhattan hotel, Denise Mountenay is telling the audience that the right to abortion is “Nazi thinking.” Mountenay regrets her own abortions, and says she has been called by God to spread the word that she and other women “were lied to, deceived, pressured into making the most horrible choice: to choose death instead of life”.

She goes on to list reasons why abortion is “not a safe procedure. [That’s what] they want woman to think – that is a lie.” Many of her claims, including that abortion leads to breast cancer, have been thoroughly disproved by scientific studies.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/mar/22/women-rights-un-anti-abortion-choice-poison-of-patriarchy-returns

22.03.2025

Commentary

69th Commission on the Status of Women

anti-choice bullshit

anti-choice cruelty

anti-choice deception

Campaign Life Coalition

International Planned Parenthood Federation

MSI Reproductive Choices

Nelly Munyasia

Oxfam

Pan-African Conference on Family Values

Project 2025

Richard and Helen DeVos Centre for Life

sexual and reproductive health and rights

Sima Bahous

Southern Poverty Law Center

Poland’s Tusk hits a wall on legalizing abortion

Failure of abortion vote raises big questions of whether Tusk can deliver the key social reforms he promised in last year’s election.

JULY 24, 2024
BY WOJCIECH KOŚĆ

WARSAW — Donald Tusk is facing his most severe political setback since becoming Polish prime minister as he hits a brick wall on one of his biggest campaign promises: Increasing access to abortion.

Tusk and his coalition partners pulled off a surprisingly convincing election win in October on the back of pledges to restore the rule of law and push through liberalizing reforms, such as allowing same-sex partnerships and overturning the country’s draconian anti-abortion regulations.

Continued: https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-prime-minister-donald-tusk-abortion-laws-protests/

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

Polish women ‘betrayed’ by slow pace of abortion reforms

Warsaw (AFP) – An unprecedented mobilisation among women brought a liberal alliance to power in Poland, raising hopes that one of Europe's strictest abortion laws would be scrapped. But now they feel betrayed.

March 8, 2024

A record 74 percent of eligible women voted in the October elections and the mobilisation of young female voters helped pro-Western parties oust the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government.

Now however, many are voicing anger and frustration, saying the government is dragging its feet on changing the laws on women's reproductive rights.

Continued: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240308-polish-women-betrayed-by-slow-pace-of-abortion-reforms-1

MPs and campaigners accuse Polish government of betrayal over abortion laws

Speaker says parliament will not consider updating country’s draconian abortion policies until mid-April

Weronika Strzyżyńska and Ashifa Kassam
Thu 7 Mar 2024

Women’s groups and politicians have taken aim at Poland’s parliamentary speaker, accusing him of betrayal and seeking to “freeze” the issue of abortion, after he said parliament would not consider legislation to tackle the country’s near-total ban on abortion until mid-April.

“We feel disappointed and betrayed,” said Dominika Ćwiek from Legal Abortion, one of the groups battling the country’s draconian abortion policies. “The rights of Polish women are being treated as a side issue.”

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/07/mps-and-campaigners-accuse-polish-government-of-betrayal-over-abortion-laws

Women’s rights activists launch effort to expand abortion rights to EU level

European NGOs said they would launch a new initiative aimed at advancing reproductive rights.

By Lauren Chadwick
March 5, 2024

Women's rights activists across Europe are joining forces to push for a dedicated funding mechanism in the European Union to make sure that women in the bloc have access to abortion.

The movement called "My Voice, My Choice" was launched in Slovenia on Tuesday and brought together activists from several European countries including Spain, Finland, Poland, France, Croatia, and Ireland.

"We are organising at the European level to push the abortion issue forward," Marta Lempart, one of the leaders of the Polish Women's Strike, told Euronews Health ahead of the announcement.

Continued: https://www.euronews.com/health/2024/03/05/womens-rights-activists-launch-effort-to-expand-abortion-rights-to-eu-level

05.03.2024

News

8th of March Institute

Doireann Crosson

EU Charter of Fundamental Rights

Marta Lempart

My Voice My Choice

National Women’s Council of Ireland

Nika Kovač

Polish women's strike

Will Poland’s New Government Legalize Abortion?

Despite campaign promises, the fight for abortion rights seems far from over.

FEBRUARY 12, 2024
Foreign Policy

After Poland’s parliamentary election in October, many voters were hopeful that the new government would finally scrap the country’s strict abortion law. The law, which had been in place for three decades, was tightened further in 2020, leading to a near-total ban on abortion.

The election ended the eight-year rule of Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS), with the opposition winning enough seats to form a coalition government. In the lead-up to the vote, two of the three groups that made up the opposition—the centrist Civic Coalition and the Left—pledged to legalize abortion up to or through 12 weeks of pregnancy; the former promised to do so within the first 100 days in office.

Continued: https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/02/12/poland-abortion-rights-pro-choice-election-coalition-pis-law-ban/

‘Try harder!’: Poland’s women demand Tusk act over abortion promises

Prime minister pledged to liberalise country’s strict laws within 100 days of taking office – but time is ticking away

Ashifa Kassam
Tue 6 Feb 2024

Wielding placards that read “The revolution has a uterus” and “My body, my choice,” they poured on to the streets of Poland, defying coronavirus restrictions and sub-zero temperatures to take part in the country’s largest protests since the fall of communism.

Three years on, the battle against Poland’s draconian abortion measures has moved from the streets to the country’s legislature, in what campaigners describe as a crucial test of the country’s new government.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/06/poland-women-donald-tusk-abortion-promises

06.02.2024

Poland – Denying Access to Abortion Is Femicide

In Poland, a country held ransom by religious fanatics, people don’t want to see more women suffer from denied abortion care.

1/6/2023
by IRENE DONADIO and MARTA LEMPART

It has been just over two years since the imposition of a near-total ban on abortion across Poland. The ban removed almost all conditions in which a woman can access abortion care, leaving millions of women in the dark when it comes to deciding what happens to their bodies.

For some women, continuing to carry their pregnancies is the most dangerous thing they can do. Even though Poland’s rigid laws state that abortion can be performed to save women’s health or life, many doctors refuse to give them to women who desperately need them.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2023/01/06/poland-abortion-ban-women-death-dying/