Last month, an abortion rights activist named Justyna Wydrzyńska showed up in a courtroom in Warsaw, Poland, and described her abortion. Her lips were painted a defiant red; her voice cracked sometimes, but she made no apologies. When she was thirty-three, she said, she was in an abusive marriage and learned she was pregnant. She struggled to find accurate information online and had to order three packs of abortion pills— the first two, from the black market, were failures. She was terrified of bleeding or falling unconscious in front of her three children, who were too young to call an ambulance. Wydrzyńska, 47, is now part of a coalition of activists called Abortion Without Borders. She was on trial for helping another Polish woman get an abortion.
Abortion was legal when Poland was under communist control, but in 1993 the predominantly Catholic country banned most abortions except in cases of rape, incest, serious fetal conditions and risk to life. of the patient. As the U.S. Supreme Court considers overturning Roe vs. Wade and by giving states the ability to ban abortion, the diverse international coalition of Abortion Without Borders could model an effective approach to abortion rights activism in a post-Roe America, as well as its risks. Wydrzyńska’s legal troubles began in 2020, when a pregnant mother told her her husband was abusive and demanded abortion pills. Wydrzyńska sent the mother pills she kept in her medicine cabinet for emergencies. But the woman’s husband, who was monitoring her cellphone, called the police, Wydrzyńska said. “I know very well what it feels like when someone uses children to get revenge, to manipulate, to control people like me, mothers,” Wydrzyńska told the court. Later, she told reporters, “You have to help your sisters.
In 2006, Wydrzyńska created a website and online forum called Kobiety with Sieci (Women on the Net) to share information about sex, contraception and abortion in Polish. In 2014, a Polish-born activist named Kinga Jelińska co-founded Women Help Women, a non-governmental organization in Amsterdam that sends abortion pills to people in Poland and other countries. In 2016, Wydrzyńska and Jeliń́ska, together with researcher Natalia Broniarczyk and lawyer Karolina Więckiewicz, created the Abortion Dream Team, which educates Poles on the safe use of abortion pills. (Recommended diet is approx. ninety-five percent efficient by terminating a pregnancy; complication rates are less than one percent, according to the Guttmacher Institute.) Dream Team members also referred people to Ciocia Basia, which pays for first-trimester abortions in Germany, and Abortion Network Amsterdam, which pays for second trimester abortions in the Netherlands. And after Ireland legalized abortion in 2018, the London-based Abortion Support Network, which draws inspiration from US abortion funds, began looking for ways to help people in Poland get abortions.
In late 2019, the six groups teamed up to create something that would be “much more than the sum of its parts,” said Mara Clarke, American founder of Abortion Support Network. On a cold, gray December day, around 40 supporters, wearing scarves that read “Abortion Without Borders” in Polish and English, marched silently from a Warsaw cultural center to the city’s central train station. , dragging suitcases as a sign of solidarity with those forced to travel. for abortion. Organizers said that in the first year the coalition helped more than five thousand people to have abortions, and in the second, thirty-four thousand people. During the pandemic, when fewer buses, trains and flights were running, demand increased; at least one woman took a train to the Polish-German border, crossed on foot, and was picked up by Ciocia Basia. Another woman, who needed a subsequent abortion, was taken to the Netherlands; she and the driver were quarantined for two weeks upon their return home.
Today, when someone in Poland needs an abortion, they can contact any member of Abortion Without Borders or call their direct linewhich operates every day between 8 A M and 8 PM Over the phone, a staff member will provide information and, if necessary, direct the caller to the relevant coalition member. Organizations outside of Poland can help callers get pills or, if there is a reason to avoid pills – a partner or relative will find out, for example, or no safe mailing address is available – refer them to a clinic. Abortion Without Borders is sprawling and decentralized by design: it takes advantage of the patchwork of abortion restrictions in different parts of Europe. By varying its tactics based on the availability and legality of different types of abortion, the network builds on each organization’s strengths and compensates for its vulnerabilities. “This allows us to better protect our colleagues on the ground in Poland, as well as providing a wider range of options for people who contact us,” Clarke told me. This approach could shed light on a path forward for the many pro-choice groups working in the United States.
When the pandemic began, Poland’s conservative government, led by the Law and Justice party, used the country’s lockdown to relaunch consideration of an unpopular proposal to further restrict access to abortion. In October 2020, the Constitutional Court ruled that abortions related to fetal conditions – the reason for nearly all of the approximately one thousand legal abortions in Poland every year – were unconstitutional. Some anti-abortion activists consider this justification for abortion to be eugenics. Although the decision took several months to take effect, Poles immediately took to the streets in protest, many carrying “Abortion Without Borders” signs with the hotline’s phone number on it. Progressive Polish politicians held up similar signs parliament and on a popular talk show. Someone with a dry sense of humor spray-painted the number black on a church in Warsaw. A historian whose thesis was honored by the Polish government announcement in a newspaper that he was donating his cash prize, 25,920 zlotys, or about $5,800, to the network. Someone – activists still do not know who – also took out billboards to advertise the hotline. Abortion Without Borders has been inundated with calls. “We were ready,” Broniarczyk told me. “We had experience, we had money, we had the network, we had places to send people to.”
Despite its name, Abortion Without Borders must pay particular attention to the borders between European states. The Dream Team can’t legally send pills to Poland, but, in a country where stigma worsens anti-abortion laws, they aim to be “the loudest social voice for change,” Jelińska told me; the group once wore T-shirts that read “Abortion Is Okay” on the cover of a Polish women’s magazine. The Netherlands’ progressive laws make it a global haven for people who need second-trimester abortions; Abortion Network Amsterdam has helped patients from all over Europe and countries like Brazil, Oman, Turkey and India. “When you go into the parking lot, it’s like the United Nations,” said one volunteer, of two clinics in particular. “You see license plates from all over Europe because it’s such a special place on the abortion map.” After the Polish court decision, Abortion Network Amsterdam started to receive five or six Polish clients every week, instead of just one or two. Within months, the organization’s volunteers were exhausted. They have asked partner organizations to take over their hotline and logistical work so they can recover.
Each member of Abortion Without Borders plays a distinct role in the network, depending on the legal context in which it operates. Abortion Support Network, which provides much of the funding for its partners in Abortion Without Borders, is a registered UK charity which can accept donations from individuals, who provide the bulk of the organisation’s funding, and governments, such than the ten thousand euros that Belgium donates. (Although many governments condemned Poland and promised funds, Belgium was the only one to send money— an amount that barely covers ten second-trimester abortions, an unimpressed activist in Amsterdam told me.) Ciocia Basia and Abortion Network Amsterdam started out as feminist collectives, run in part by queer volunteers; Clarke said these collaborations taught her to be more intersectional. Abortion Without Borders is also linked to activists in Austria and the Czech Republic, where patients can get abortions. Clarke “whispered in the ears” of people in Hungary and Romania, which have conservative leaders who might restrict abortion.
Comments are closed.