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

Change Nigeria’s obsolete abortion law

24th November 2024
By Punch Editorial Board

WOMEN’S reproductive rights remain a polarising subject in Nigeria. They are rooted in historical and moral complexities. Yet, as society evolves and medical science advances, the omnipresence of draconian laws governing abortion has become an existential threat to Nigerian women, particularly the vulnerable.

Maternal mortality, unplanned pregnancies, rape, and incest are grim realities that demand a shift in perspective and policy. There is a need for progressive reforms in abortion laws, not to advocate reckless terminations but to align with a woman’s right to life, health, and dignity within the bounds of morality and medical science.

Continued: https://punchng.com/change-nigerias-obsolete-abortion-law/

24.11.2024

severe foetal abnormalities

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How women are resisting Poland’s abortion ban

By Costanza Spocci
26 May 2022

Warsaw, Poland – On a cold, hazy December morning, the Ryz sisters stand on a sidewalk of a busy street in Warsaw.

“Shall we go to church?” 24-year-old Olympia asks her sister, Melania, grinning and holding up a dozen pink, yellow and grey stickers with the words, “Abortion is OK”, and the hotline numbers and social media profiles of Polish pro-choice organisations.

Continued: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/longform/2022/5/26/how-women-are-resisting-polands-abortion-ban

26.05.2022

Abortion Without Borders

Agnieszka T

Aleksander Stępkowski

All-Poland Women's Strike

European Court of Human Rights

FEDERA

Federation for Women and Family Planning

Law and Justice party

Ogólnopolski Strajk Kobiet

Olympia Ryz

Ordo Luris

Polish Episcopal Conference

registry of pregnant women

septic shock

severe foetal abnormalities

Poland abortion laws: Woman’s death spurs calls for change

Izabel’s case has intensified demands to loosen Poland’s laws, which are among the most restrictive in Europe.

By Urooba Jamal, Al Jazeera
1 Dec 2021

If Anka Adamczyk were to ever have a child, she would leave Poland to give birth. “It’s … super scary,” the 35-year-old told Al Jazeera by phone from Warsaw. “The consequences are so horrible that I would really not take the risk.”

She is among the women who are now struggling to even consider childbirth because of the country’s strict abortion laws, which have seen doctors refuse to terminate pregnancies even when complications pose a fatal risk.

Continued: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/12/1/poland-abortion-laws-womans-death-spurs-calls-for-change

Guernsey abortion time limits to be extended to 24 weeks

July 15, 2021

Abortions up to 24 weeks into a pregnancy will become legal, under agreed reforms to Guernsey law.

Politicians approved extending the existing 12-week limit and removing the 24-week restriction in cases of a significant foetal abnormality.

About 200 pro-choice and anti-abortion activists gathered outside the States of Guernsey on Wednesday.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-guernsey-57833783

15.07.2021

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Westminster steps in after Northern Ireland fails to comply with abortion law change – how it happened

April 1, 2021
Claire Pierson

Abortion was decriminalised in Northern Ireland in October 2019. In March the following year, the legal framework was in place to provide terminations. A year later, though, it hasn’t happened. The Department of Health in Northern Ireland hasn’t provided a clear plan to commission permanent abortion services that would ensure provision would be budgeted for and available throughout all of Northern Ireland.

Now Westminster has had to intervene to ensure women in Northern Ireland can access abortion services they are legally entitled to. Abortions can be carried out in all circumstances up to week 12 of pregnancy, until week 24 if continuing the pregnancy would risk injury to the woman’s physical or mental health, and without a time limit in cases of severe or fatal foetal abnormality or risk to the life of the pregnant woman.

Continued: https://theconversation.com/westminster-steps-in-after-northern-ireland-fails-to-comply-with-abortion-law-change-how-it-happened-158239

Polish women travel abroad for abortions ahead of law change

Support services in Poland and abroad say numbers increasing even before legislation is tightened

Shaun Walker and Anna Koslerova in Prague
Sun 13 Dec 2020

Polish women are increasingly being forced to travel abroad to seek abortions even though a court ruling to tighten the country’s already strict laws has not yet coming into force, activists have said.

The constitutional court ruled in October
that abortion was illegal even in cases where there were severe foetal
abnormalities. Around 1,000 abortions a year – almost all of the country’s
legal abortion procedures – are carried out for this reason.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/13/polish-women-travel-abroad-for-abortions-ahead-of-new-law

Poland’s recent challenge on the road towards emancipation of women

Abortion has always been a topic of dispute regarding both women’s rights and a broader notion of human rights.

Monday, 30 November 2020
Sukran Unal

Various political, medical, religious or ethical
views on the topic have eventually led to the deepening of the controversy and
blocked the way to figure out a common solution across the world. Today, there
are also ongoing debates in the EU concerning the ethics and legitimacy of
abortion.

The issue is attributed utmost importance not only by most of the EU Member
States, but also by the EU itself, as well as the candidate countries having to
comply with the acquis to realise their prospective EU membership aspirations.

Continued: https://www.brusselstimes.com/opinion/140805/an-eu-wide-debate-polands-recent-challenge-on-the-road-towards-emancipation-of-women/

30.11.2020

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Polish de facto ban on abortion puts women’s lives at risk, says Parliament

November 27, 2020
by The Sting's Team

MEPs condemn the setback to women’s sexual and reproductive rights in Poland and stress the EU’s legal obligation to uphold and protect them.

In a resolution adopted with 455 votes to 145 and 71 abstentions, Parliament says that the ruling of 22 October by Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal to make abortion illegal in cases involving severe and irreversible foetal defects “puts women’s health and lives at risk”, as most legal abortions in the country are performed on those grounds. Banning that option, which accounted for 96% of legal pregnancy terminations in Poland in 2019 (1,074 out of 1,110), would lead to an increase in “unsafe, clandestine and life-threatening abortions”, MEPs warn.

Continued: https://europeansting.com/2020/11/27/polish-de-facto-ban-on-abortion-puts-womens-lives-at-risk-says-parliament/

27.11.2020