Nawrocki win is ‘devastating blow’ for abortion rights activists in Poland

Any hopes to liberalize the country’s strict abortion rules are lost as the nationalist candidate secured a narrow win.

June 3, 2025
By Claudia Chiappa

Lawmakers and activists are warning that nationalist candidate Karol Nawrocki’s win in the Polish presidential election represents a “defeat” for women’s rights and further threatens abortion access in Poland.

Nawrocki, a self-described football hooligan backed by the right-wing nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party — and by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration — won Poland’s presidential election last weekend, narrowly beating centrist Rafał Trzaskowski.

Continued: https://www.politico.eu/article/nawrocki-win-is-devastating-blow-for-abortion-rights-activists-in-poland/

‘He kept saying I’m a murderer’: Polish doctor targeted for legal abortion

April 30, 2025
Will Vernon, BBC News in Warsaw

A leading Polish doctor has told the BBC she fears for her patients' safety after being targeted by anti-abortion activists.

Gizela Jagielska says she has received thousands of death threats in relation to her work administering legal abortions in a hospital in the town of Olesnica in southwestern Poland. The facility specialises in complicated pregnancies.

On 17 April, a group of activists led by radical, far-right MEP Grzegorz Braun came to the hospital, prevented Dr Jagielska from leaving her office and attempted to carry out a citizen's arrest.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgkg4y5jpjpo

30.04.2025

Poland’s far-right amplifies abortion wars ahead of election

by Barbara Wolk
April 28, 2025

Poland’s abortion debate has once again taken a dangerous turn — this time sparked by far-right MEP Grzegorz Braun, who stormed a Polish hospital to attempt a citizen’s arrest of a doctor performing a medically-indicated late-term abortion. Braun, a presidential hopeful from the extreme-right in the upcoming May elections, accused the doctor of committing “murder,” live-streaming his political stunt to rally his conservative base.

Currently, abortion is only legal in Poland in two circumstances: if the pregnancy is the result of rape (up to 12 weeks), or if the pregnancy poses a threat to the woman's life or health. The third legal reason — severe fetal abnormalities — was abolished in 2020 when the Law and Justice (PiS)-controlled constitutional tribunal ruled it unconstitutional, effectively reducing the number of abortions performed in hospitals by 90 percent. Since then, abortion has become not just a medical issue, but a political weapon of the far-right — used to polarise, control, and distract.

Continued: https://euobserver.com/eu-political/ard15429ac

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/

Poland’s abortion law bickering plagues Tusk coalition

The liberalization of abortion rights was a major election promise made by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. But the issue is controversial and there are major hurdles to a new law.

Jacek Lepiarz
April 15, 2024

Polish women had to wait a long time for this day. Some four months after the center-left coalition under Donald Tusk took office, the liberalization of abortion was finally on the agenda for the Sejm, the country's lower house of parliament. The debate was fierce.

"Old men in suits will no longer decide what women must do with their bodies," shouted Anna Maria Zukowska, a member of parliament for the co-governing The Left alliance, at the presentation of the bill on Friday. "No more hell for women!"

Continued: https://www.dw.com/en/polands-abortion-law-bickering-plagues-tusk-coalition/a-68812592

Massive protests in Poland after the death of a woman who was denied an abortion

HELEN HERNANDEZ
Nov 6, 2021

Thousands of people took to the streets in various cities of Poland to protest after the death of a woman who was denied an abortion, in a country with one of the most restrictive laws on the legal interruption of pregnancy (ILE) in Europe.

Under the motto “Not one more”, the most massive protest took place in Warsaw, where the protesters marched from the headquarters of the Constitutional Court – which with its 2020 ruling made abortion illegal in almost all its causes – towards the national Ministry of Health.

Continued: https://oicanadian.com/massive-protests-in-poland-after-the-death-of-a-woman-who-was-denied-an-abortion/

Poland Court Ruling Effectively Bans Legal Abortions

The decision, which cannot be appealed, halts pregnancy terminations for fetal abnormalities, virtually the only type currently performed in the country.

By Monika Pronczuk
Oct. 22, 2020

A constitutional tribunal in Poland ruled on Thursday that abortions for fetal abnormalities violate the country’s Constitution, effectively imposing a near-total ban in a nation that already had some of the strictest abortion laws in Europe.

The debate over a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy, a divisive issue in a staunchly Roman Catholic country, mirrors the bitter polarization of a society caught between traditional religious values and more liberal ones.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/22/world/europe/poland-tribunal-abortions.html