Women are protesting in Poland for free access to legal abortions
WARSAW: Women plan street demonstrations in more than 20 Polish cities and towns Thursday to protest the lack of access to free and legal abortion.
They’re accusing Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s liberal government of failing to fulfill its promise to relax Poland’s strict abortion laws, and protesting even though the parliament passed two bills on Tuesday aimed at easing abortion rules. The measures are likely to be vetoed by the conservative president, Karol Nawrocki.Passing the draft laws now, a year before the next parliamentary election, is a case of “token gestures” rather than a genuine effort to reform abortion law, said Zofia Marcinek of the Abortion Dream Team, a reproductive rights activist group in Warsaw.
She said the liberal government knew the draft laws stand no chance of withstanding Nawrocki’s veto, and has merely tried to create the impression of taking action because it needs women’s support to win elections next year.Since 1993, legal abortions have been allowed in Catholic Poland only in cases of severe fetal abnormality, risk to the mother’s life and health, or the pregnancy being a result of rape or incest.
Polish women have been pushing for the legalization of abortion ever since, including in a nationwide wave of demonstrations of women wearing black called “Black Protest,” which began in 2016.Despite the laws, abortions remain common in Poland, an overwhelming majority of which are carried out by women at home using pills obtained from outside the country. Women who undergo abortions, including by taking pills, do not face criminal responsibility under Polish law. But people helping them, including doctors and family, can potentially be prosecuted.
And abortion remains a taboo subject in Poland, which now has one of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws, with only Malta imposing stricter limits.Polish hospitals performed 573 abortions in the first half of 2026, compared to 452 in the whole of 2022 before Tusk came to power, according to data from the national health fund. But activists say tens of thousands of abortions happen yearly outside of hospitals.
Activists organizing Thursday’s protests are claiming the Tusk government has betrayed Polish women — and that Tusk’s claims that women’s access to abortion has improved during his administration have actually complicated getting care for some women.