The woman told the abortion helpline that she would harm herself if she did not receive assistance.
The pandemic had just begun in February of 2020, yet travel was already getting tough.
She stated that she needed an abortion, but because she was in an abusive relationship, she could not risk her husband finding out.
This situation felt personal to Justyna Wydrzynska, the volunteer on the other end of the phone because she also had an abortion while living with an abusive boyfriend years ago.
She sent the frantic woman an end-of-pregnancy pill packet with instructions on how to take them safely.
“I felt that was a heartfelt gesture, woman to woman, and not just from a lady who had experienced an abortion, but also from a woman who had experienced domestic violence,” she told.
But the woman’s husband discovered the pills and phoned the police, and two years later, Justyna faces three years in prison for what she did; she is the first activist to face trial under Polish law for assisting a woman in obtaining an abortion.
Justyna is a member of Abortion without Borders, an international organization of pro-choice activists that assists Polish women in terminating their pregnancies, where abortion is effectively prohibited.
The organization provides information on how to buy abortion pills and can assist with overseas travel, lodging, and medical expenses.
It provides the type of assistance that was unavailable to Justyna when she terminated her pregnancy sixteen years ago, including a helpline that receives between 700 and 800 monthly calls from women seeking counseling.
Justyna stated, “I had no one to call because there were no helplines.”
“There was no information on how to do it,” she added, adding that she had tried two different medicines that did not work before achieving success.
Justyna was alone and afraid. “I now realize it wasn’t risky, but at the time I thought it was. I lacked the right information, so I genuinely believed I was going to die.”
Her personal experience drove her to advocate for abortion rights. Justyna stated that it is inconceivable that she could be sent to prison for assisting destitute ladies.
She compared it to the humanitarian operations taking place at Poland’s border to assist Ukrainian migrants fleeing the fighting.
Some helped the woman who told you she would kill herself if she couldn’t obtain an abortion, and others helped the people dying in the war. Now I’m going to prison, and they’re the heroes.
Poland, a predominantly Catholic nation, effectively outlawed abortion in 1993, with the only exceptions being where a woman’s life or health is threatened, or when the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.
However, it is hardly the only country to retreat from women’s rights.
On Friday, the United States Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade, a decision that has upheld the right to safe and legal abortion at any time before a fetus can survive outside the womb for almost half a century.
It implies that states now can make their own decisions about a woman’s right to an abortion, with at least 26 states certain or likely to take steps to ban the procedure outright.
The ruling, which was unimaginable just a few years ago, was the culmination of decades of effort by abortion opponents, made possible by the right side of a court on which former President Donald Trump chose three members.
In several places with so-called “trigger laws” that instantly come into effect, clinics have already closed.
Critics, however, argue that a country cannot ban abortion; it can only ban safe abortion.
Poland provides a peek at what the future of the United States could look like if women lose the ability to choose.
It exemplifies how the rights of women can be eliminated overnight amidst political turmoil in society.
This exemption was eliminated by Poland’s constitutional court in 2020. For many years, abortions were permitted for fetuses with congenital abnormalities.
Justyna reported that the helpline phones began ringing 100 times each day as women who had been hospitalized awaiting abortions were informed that they had been canceled.
It was monumental for us; many women were scared of the options they would have in that circumstance.
But they did not vanish; they disappeared from the system, but not from life, and they were forced to find solutions.
“Therefore, we took responsibility for them, as they were unable to find assistance in the Polish healthcare system, and for us, it was something completely new, as we had just been in contact with those who wanted to terminate unwanted pregnancies, and now we were in contact with those who had wanted pregnancies, but had to make that decision due to external factors.”
According to advocates for abortion rights, three women have died as a result of the change in the law.
One of these ladies, Izabela, 30 years old, died of sepsis in September after doctors declined to abort her severely deformed fetus.
She left a husband and a daughter behind.
At the time, women’s rights campaigners claimed that doctors in Poland would rather let a fetus with no chance of survival die in the womb than conduct an abortion.
Justyna noted that although doctors are taught they can terminate a pregnancy to save a woman’s life, the law is ambiguous and they are paralyzed by the dread of being prosecuted.
When asked what she believed the reversal of Roe would mean for the United States, she stated, “if your country takes away liberties, society will always oppose.”
Numerous grassroots organizations ship abortion pills to the United States, and there will be people who are fearless enough to accomplish this task.
Justyna is certain of one thing, however: the Supreme Court’s decision will not stop abortions.
“You do not prevent abortion. If abortion is outlawed in a country, unsafe abortions increase, but the law does not prevent people from having abortions.
