Poland – Post-Illiberal Women’s Rights

Constitutional Negligence and Gender Constitutionalism
Katarzyna Łakomiec, Barbara Grabowska-Moroz

17 June 2026

One of the major lessons of the rule of law backsliding is that the erosion of legal remedies (and capture of independent institutions) will, sooner or later, undermine effective fundamental rights protection. And even though women’s rights are probably not the first thing that comes to mind when talking about the rule of law, they turned out to be the litmus test for harms caused by the rule of law backsliding.

That is why it is worth analysing the effectiveness of the post-2023 restoration of the rule of law in Poland, focusing specifically on what was visibly undermined by the populists: women’s rights. We argue that the pre-populist negligence in recognising and interpreting the constitutional status of women’s rights made it easier for populists to attack women’s rights and replace them with an ‘interest of the family’.

Continued: https://verfassungsblog.de/hungary-poland-illiberal-womens-rights/

17.06.2026

Commentary

Research

Barbara Grabowska-Moroz

Katarzyna Łakomiec

Poland Constitutional Tribunal

Poland’s democracy looks different from a hospital corridor

23 March 2026
by Wiktoria Wilk

If you want to know how Polish democracy is doing in 2026, do not look at another index: look at a woman’s phone. Between lecture schedules and grocery lists sit the real indicators: a Czech clinic’s address; a fund for abortion pills; the name of the only police officer in town who is said to believe women. That is where “rule of law” is fact-checked in real time. For a decade, the official story of Polish democracy has been transition, accession, and backsliding, while women have been pushed into the “culture war” drawer.

But seen from the ground, the order is reversed. The near‑total abortion ban, the threatened exit from the Istanbul Convention, the crusades against “gender ideology”, and rainbow‑free zones. These are not side conflicts, they are the main experiment in how far governments can capture courts, conventions and institutions before someone utters the word “authoritarianism”. The state of Polish democracy is perceived clearest in the places where the law legislates against the lives of women.

Continued: https://www.taurillon.org/poland-s-democracy-looks-different-from-a-hospital-corridor

23.03.2026

Commentary

Poland Constitutional Tribunal

State-Enabled Intimidation: How Anti-Abortion Extremism Is Undermining Legal Healthcare in Poland

12.02.2026
ASTRA Network

Poland is experiencing a coordinated and escalating campaign of anti-abortion intimidation and disinformation that directly undermines women’s access to lawful healthcare. This campaign is driven by fundamentalist actors and increasingly reinforced by political figures and state institutions that legitimize and amplify these practices. Together, these dynamics create a climate in which legally guaranteed medical services are systematically obstructed through fear, harassment, and institutional pressure.

Abortion Access in Poland: Law and Reality
Poland has one of the most restrictive abortion legislations in Europe. Following politically captured rulings of the Constitutional Tribunal, abortion is now effectively permitted only when a pregnancy poses a threat to a woman’s life or health, or when it results from a criminal act.

Continued: https://astra.org.pl/state-enabled-intimidation-how-anti-abortion-extremism-is-undermining-legal-healthcare-in-poland/

The Abortion Ban That Didn’t End Abortion in Poland

Five years after Poland's top court gutted abortion rights, access to legal procedures has quietly expanded – but only for women who learned to work within a system designed to say ‘no’.

Ada Petriczko
February 4, 2026

Edyta was 29 weeks pregnant when the MRI results came back. She opened the report in a hospital corridor in Warsaw. Missing temporal bone. Disrupted neuronal migration. Abnormalities in the corpus callosum.

“I just stood there. I couldn’t move,” she tells BIRN. “The entire pregnancy everyone kept saying nothing was wrong – and then suddenly my baby's brain wasn’t developing normally.”

Continued: https://balkaninsight.com/2026/02/04/polands-precarious-post-abortion-ban-compromise-leaves-women-at-mercy-of-the-system/

Poland marks five years since mass abortion rights protests

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.

Continued: https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7784/Artykul/3597197,poland-marks-five-years-since-mass-abortion-rights-protests

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

A year after Tusk came to power, why is access to safe and legal abortion still a distant dream in Poland?

A year ago, Anna Błuś travelled home to her native Poland to vote in an election whose result she hoped would usher in a change to the country’s near total ban on abortion. What went wrong?

By Anna Błuś, Amnesty International
October 15, 2024

Exactly a year ago on the eve of Poland’s elections, I joined a huge queue snaking around a polling station in Warsaw on a cold autumn day. Despite the chill and the hours spent waiting to vote, the atmosphere was festive. There was a mood of anticipation in the air: a palpable sense that change was coming after eight years of regressive rule by the Law and Justice (PiS) party.

As I watched the exit polls in a packed bar later that night, it became clear that this had been an election like no other with a record turnout (74%) and unprecedented numbers of women and young people coming out to vote.

Continued: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/10/a-year-after-tusk-came-to-power-why-is-access-to-safe-and-legal-abortion-still-a-distant-dream-in-poland/

Poland’s Abortion Reform Stalls as Coalition Politics Clash with Campaign Promises

Aug 12, 2024
Zuzanna Stawiska, Health Policy Watch

Nearly a year after new Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk promised a fresh start for abortion rights, following his election victory in October 2023, reform efforts have stalled as campaign promises collide with the realities of coalition politics in a divided Poland.

Poland is amongst only four countries worldwide to have restricted abortion rights in the past three decades, joining El Salvador, Nicaragua, and the United States. In 2020, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal, stacked with judges appointed by the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, further tightened the country’s already strict 1993 abortion law.

Continued: https://healthpolicy-watch.news/polands-abortion-reform-stalls-as-coalition-politics-clash-with-campaign-promises/

Why Poland’s new government is challenged by abortion

Published: May 24, 2024
Patrice McMahon

When Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk formed a coalition government in 2023 committed to making “historic changes,” he promised to improve the country’s track record on women’s rights. Noticeably absent in the coalition’s agreement, however, was any specific wording on access to abortion, one of the most controversial issues under the previous government.

The coalition parties are united in their opposition to the conservative Law and Justice Party, PiS, which led the government for eight years. PiS weakened Poland’s democracy by undermining the independence of the judiciary and placing restrictions on the media, and it strained its relationship with the European Union. PiS also ushered in some of the strictest abortion laws in Europe, with the help of hand-picked judges from Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal.

Continued: https://theconversation.com/why-polands-new-government-is-challenged-by-abortion-228863

24.05.2024

Law and Justice party

National March for Life

Poland Constitutional Tribunal

Former Polish PM regrets restricting abortion laws in light of liberalisation push

By Aleksandra Krzysztoszek | EURACTIV.pl
Apr 14, 2024

Former prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki of the former ruling conservative PiS party has said he supports restoring the status quo ‘abortion compromise’ in Poland he had scrapped when in power, as lawmakers push to expand abortion access.

Morawiecki said he feels regret as the proposals now being debated in parliament are even more far-reaching than those previously in force. “If I could turn back time, yes, I would do it. I think the compromise was a bad thing, but much better than what may await us in the future,” he told RMF FM radio.

Continued: https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/former-polish-pm-regrets-restricting-abortion-laws-in-light-of-liberalisation-push/

14.04.2024