Polish abortion activist found guilty of giving abortion pills

• Abortion is nearly completely prohibited in Poland.
• Offering assistance in abortion can now result in up to three years in prison.
• Justyna Wydrzynska is thought to be the first activist to be tried for assisting a pregnant woman.

A Polish lady was sentenced to community service for illegally assisting another woman in having an abortion.

In Poland, abortion is nearly completely prohibited, and Justyna Wydrzynska is thought to be the first activist to be tried for assisting a pregnant woman.

In Poland, offering assistance can now result in up to three years in prison.

The woman to whom Ms. Wydrzynska sent the drugs did not have an abortion.

UN authorities, gynecologists, and human rights organizations had all requested that the case be withdrawn.

Ms. Wydrzynska, who plans to appeal the verdict, told the court that when she discovered the pregnant woman was in an abusive relationship, she sent her a bag of abortion pills.

The woman involved, Ania (not her real name), had intended to fly to a clinic in Germany to terminate her pregnancy but was unable to do so because of a Covid-19 shutdown. She then looked for the assistance online.

Ms. Wydrzynska, who works with Abortion Dream Team, said she decided to send the tablets to Ania in order to give her a choice. She had faced abuse from her children’s father and had kept her own abortion a secret.

When Ania’s spouse discovered the drugs, he confiscated them and denounced the activist to the authorities. According to rumours, she never had the baby and later miscarried.

Addressing the court, Ms. Wydrzynska said she was innocent and that the state had failed her, Ania, and other women, Polish website Oko.press reported: “I was driven by the desire to help when no one else wanted to or could help.”

Protesters gathered outside the court in Warsaw holding Jak Justyna (I am Justyna) banners and Amnesty International condemned the sentence as a “depressing low in the repression of reproductive rights in Poland”.

Abortion has been legal in Poland since 2020, but only in circumstances of rape or incest, or when the pregnancy endangers the mother’s health. In the European Union, only Malta has tougher abortion rules, and the decision sparked massive protests in Poland.

Advocates and women’s rights organizations claim that the 2020 court decision has a chilling effect on doctors, who now fear sanctions even when there are legal grounds for an abortion.

When a pregnant lady died in a Polish hospital in 2021, her family claimed that the laws prevented doctors from acting and that the government was forced to change the standards. Izabela, 30, died of septic shock while physicians allegedly waited for her unborn child to die.

Notwithstanding Ms. Wydrzynska’s lawyer’s request for acquittal, prosecutors wanted a longer term of community service. Ordo Iuris, an ultra-orthodox Catholic legal body that took part in the trial, believed she should be sentenced to probation.

The verdict is understood to be the first time in Poland that an activist, rather than a family member or doctor, has been tried for assisting someone in having an abortion.

Last year, the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics (Figo) wrote to Public Prosecutor General Zbigniew Ziobro, urging him to dismiss the charges against Ms. Wydrzynska and other campaigners, and to fully decriminalize abortion access.

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