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


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/


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/


Polish court throws out $16 fine for swearing at anti-abortion protest

PAUL WALDIE, EUROPE CORRESPONDENT
February 5, 2024

It has taken three years, two guilty verdicts and a lot of frayed nerves, but a Polish court has finally thrown out the $16 fine Julia Landowska received for swearing during an anti-government rally in Gdansk.

Ms. Landowska, a 23-year-old medical student, was charged by the police in 2021 after she took part in a demonstration against new restrictions on abortion. At the time, women across Poland were protesting a decision by the country’s Constitutional Court that banned access to abortion in all circumstances except cases of sexual assault, incest or if the mother’s life or health were at risk.

Continued: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-poland-abortion-protester-fine/


Half of public support Tusk’s aim to introduce abortion on demand in Poland, find polls

FEB 2, 2024
Notes from Poland

Two new polls have found that around half of the public support the proposals recently put forward by Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition (KO) and one of its coalition partners, The Left (Lewica), to introduce abortion on demand.

A poll by the IBRiS agency for broadcaster Radio Zet published on Wednesday asked respondents whether abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy should be allowed in any circumstances and without providing a reason.

Continued:  https://notesfrompoland.com/2024/02/02/half-of-public-support-tusks-aim-to-introduce-abortion-on-demand-in-poland-find-polls/


Second trimester abortions: a preventable crisis in global abortion care

Diminishing access to second trimester abortions in many countries denies the reality of the rising number of vulnerable women most likely to need a later stage abortion. Sally Howard reports on a preventable crisis in global abortion care

BMJ 2024; 384 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.p2982
Published 31 January 2024
Sally Howard, freelance journalist

Kamila had dearly wanted to have a child. The 27 year old was happily engaged to be married and was 17 weeks pregnant when a scan showed that her fetus was developing without a skull and wouldn’t survive to birth. She was refused an abortion in her home country of Poland, where abortions in the case of fetal abnormality are prohibited.

On her way to the Netherlands, where an abortion had been arranged by the charity Abortion Without Borders, Kamila (not her real name) started bleeding heavily in a petrol station toilet. Distraught and weak, she had to be transported to a German hospital, where she gave birth to a dead fetus in the emergency room. Kamila returned to Poland after a four day hospital stay, with a bill for her medical treatment from the German state.

Poland has some of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws (fig 1). The law that forced Kamila to travel had been in place since 2020, introduced to Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal (the national court that supervises compliance of statutory law with the country’s constitution) by the Polish Law and Justice Party, which was voted out of power on 19 October 2023. In those three years the ruling has effectively shuttered Polish abortion provision: both medical and surgical abortions are inaccessible in Poland, even in cases where they’re technically legally permitted, such as when there’s a threat to the life or health of the parent.

Continued (Behind paywall): https://www.bmj.com/content/384/bmj.p2982.full


Poland shows the difficulties of trying to reverse an abortion ban

By Kate Brady and Gerrit De Vynck, Washington Post
January 27, 2024

PRENZLAU, Germany — Only 30 miles separate the two clinics where gynecologist Maria Kubisa works, but what’s legal at her clinic on this side of the border would be criminal at the clinic back in Poland.

So women have been crossing over to seek help from Kubisa on this side, especially in the past three years, since a Polish court backed by a ring-wing government imposed a near-ban on abortion.

Unlocked: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/01/27/poland-abortion-12-weeks-donald-tusk/