Justyna Wydrzyńska (Abortion Dream Team) speaks in European Parliament on the reality of abortion care in Poland

On 1 February 2023, Justyna Wydrzyńska spoke in European Parliament on the reality of abortion care in Poland, on the invitation of Renew Europe.

Justyna’s next (fifth) trial will take place on February 6 in the court at Poligonowa in Warsaw.

Take action to support Justyna

Read Justyna’s full speech below:

“My name is Justyna Wydrzyńska and for the last 16 years I’ve been helping in abortions in Poland.
I’m one of the people who answer the Abortion Without Borders hotline, which has been operating since December 2019.

We are not theoreticians: we provide practical help in terminating a pregnancy. That means we advise where to order safe pills, how to prepare for the abortion, what will happen during the procedure – we guide people through the entire process.

Poland, second only to Malta, has one of the strictest anti-abortion regulations in Europe. Two years ago, our Constitutional Court banned abortion in the case of fetal defects. As Abortion Without Borders, in the last two years alone, we have helped over 100,000 people from Poland in accessing a safe abortion. That’s an average of 107 abortions every day.

We also help organize abortions in foreign clinics: we help to pay for the procedure, travel and stay. Since the verdict of the Constitutional Tribunal, over 2,000 people have used our support to get a surgical abortion in a foreign clinic.

Today I would like to share with you at least a part of my experience.

Every week we receive awful stories from women who tried to seek abortions in Polish hospitals.
Polish women treated by the doctors with hostility and condescension. Ukrainian women asking themselves ‘Why isn’t abortion just a normal procedure, as it is in Ukraine?’. Women being dismissed with a suggestion to „try in a different hospital”. Women in need of urgent help sent home by religious fanatics and cowards in white coats.

When women travel with our help to the Netherlands, Belgium, England, France, Germany, the Czech Republic or Austria for an abortion, they are surprised at how decently and kindly they have been treated.
However, abortions in foreign clinics are only about 1% of all abortions that we help arrange. Only a percentage, because there is a better method of abortion. A method recommended by the World Health Organization: non-invasive, safe, safer than pregnancy, safer than a tooth extraction or even a Viagra pill… A method that doesn’t require anesthesia; a method that, according to WHO – does not require a doctor and can be done at home, completely by yourself.

That method is: an abortion with pills. Most women in Poland and around the world use abortion pills to terminate their pregnancy – a set of mifepristone and misoprostol ordered from the international foundation Women Help Women.

That is the method that I chose in order to terminate my own pregnancy. I have learned the hard way that in Poland women cannot count on the state, doctors or politicians. But they can count on each other.
These pills, quoting the WHO again, “should be available everywhere”. In 2020 I sent those pills to a woman who reached out for help to Abortion Without Borders. For this, I’m facing 3 years in prison. This Monday, February 6, will be my fifth court hearing. At the last trial, a man who tried to force that woman to carry her pregnancy testified – he testified not as an accused, but as a witness. In addition, he is supported by religious fanatics who attend the trial to represent “the interests of the fetus and its successors.”

Despite this absurd situation and the completely real repression I’m facing, I still believe that any person would choose to help another woman, even at the risk of their own safety.

I know I would do it again. I do not feel guilty. It is never a crime to support another woman in need. It’s not something any of us should be ashamed of.

Helping in abortions is necessary, especially when you live in a country like Poland, where all access to abortion is provided by informal groups and non-governmental organizations. It is us, the activists, who repair the damage that the Polish anti-abortion act causes every day.

Frankly speaking, access to abortion in Poland has been limited for 30 years, not only since 2020 and the unfortunate ruling of the constitutional court, which of course made the situation even worse – but it’s already been very strict.

Now, even in cases where abortion is permitted by law, a Polish hospital is not a place to reach out to for help. Although the doctors have all the necessary diplomas, they don’t know anything about terminating a pregnancy and can’t perform abortions. When they do, they use truly archaic, invasive methods. But most of the time – they will just decide not to help.

At Abortion Without Borders, we sometimes receive calls from terrified pregnant women who are in hospitals with the risk of sepsis and are slowly dying – but the doctors are waiting until the fetus dies “naturally” before they try to help. This is how Iza from Pszczyna, Agnieszka from Częstochowa died.
Helping in abortions in Poland minimizes the risk of health complications and even minimizes the risk of tragic death. Helping with abortions in Poland is a must.

However, I will not lie to you: for handing over these pills I could go to prison not only in Poland. To be honest, every European country, including those that financially support our work or write to the polish government demanding that the charges against me be dropped, any of them could put me on trial – for providing drugs for abortion without a “proper license”.

European legislation – not only Polish – is massively behind the scientific knowledge and the recommendations of the WHO. Almost every country has its own arbitrary conditions that hinder access to abortion. Absurd conditions, incompatible with the state of scientific knowledge, but above all – incompatible with the needs of women.

Some of you are probably thinking: abortion with pills at home? Without a doctor? Isn’t that dangerous?
The myth of a “safe abortion, guaranteed by law but possible only in a hospital” is just a myth. The WHO guidelines are clear: abortion with pills does not require a doctor – it requires a safe and peaceful home. It requires no social stigma. A doctor is only needed in late term abortions and serious complications.
Situation in Poland is proof that it is enough to question one of the laws “guaranteeing abortion”, for doctors to stop performing it en masse. They would sooner risk the lives of their patients rather than their job position.

Abortion cannot be part of a political game. Abortion law cannot be created by auctioning off strict, specific situations that the law will allow. Such auctions of “exceptional situations” are sometimes won by progressive parties, sometimes by religious fanatics – but always, always, it’s an auction that women will lose.

Now, when access to abortion in my country is the subject of an ideological campaign, now that human rights defenders are being pursued by a prosecutor’s office, helping women requires huge human and financial resources.

As Abortion Without Borders, over the last two years we have spent over 2 million zlotys on helping women. Abortions cost money and the AWB network needs funds from Europe to be able to provide these safe abortions at the best possible level. Abortion care can be kind and empathetic, it can be dignified – and that’s the type of care we’re fighting for.

We received support not only from individual donors, but also from other European countries. One of them was Belgium: on the initiative of the Secretary of State for Gender equality, Equal opportunity and Diversity, Sara Schlitz, Abortion Without Borders has already received financial support for the organization of abortions twice – for which we are very grateful.

Polish and Ukrainian women, especially now during the war and economic crisis, need such solidarity and such support. Being here, in the European Parliament, I feel obliged to tell you this directly.
I want to thank you for all the of support we’ve already received. It truly is priceless.

-Justyna Wydrzyńska
Reposted from Abortion Dream Team’s newsletter