Name: The women travelling across Europe to escape Poland's restrictive abortion laws
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The women travelling across Europe to escape Poland's restrictive abortion laws

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The woman who called the abortion hotline needed to get from Poland to the UK to get a legal termination.&nbsp;Poland’s airports were closed to the vast majority of flights as part of its , so volunteers from Abortion Without Borders – a network of organisations that give advice on unwanted pregnancies in Poland – organised for her to get permission to cross the border by road into Germany, from where she could fly from Berlin to London.When she got to Berlin, the hotel they had booked for her was closed because of the coronavirus pandemic, so she slept in the airport. Her outbound flight was cancelled three times before she was able to get to London.&nbsp;In London, her next hotel had been given over to rough sleepers and frontline workers, so the volunteers kicked into gear again to find her another after which she was eventually able to get the abortion and fly home. In all, the process took six days and cost more than £2,700. When she arrived back in Poland, she had to go into quarantine for 14 days.During the , these are the lengths required for those who need to end an unwanted pregnancy in the eastern European country, which has some of the . The procedure is illegal in Poland in all circumstances except in cases of rape, incest, fetal anomaly or to save the life of the mother. But such is the chilling effect of the law that many doctors are reluctant to perform abortions at all.&nbsp;"Polish law is extremely restrictive, and it's interpreted by doctors in the most restrictive possible way,” says Dr Sydney Calkin, who researches cross-border abortion access in Europe at Queen Mary University of London. “It all pretty much amounts to a total ban."Abortion Without Borders – which comprises NGOs from Poland, the Netherlands and the UK – launched in December last year and has since organised abortion travel from Poland for 101 people, according to new data shared with the Telegraph. More than 2,000 people have called its hotline for advice and the initiative has provided nearly £25,000 in funding for its users to access abortions.&nbsp;“When we launched in December, we didn't think ‘Oh, in three months we're going to be in the midst of a pandemic,’” says Mara Clarke of UK charity Abortion Support Network, one of the member organisations of Abortion Without Borders. But since the pandemic hit Europe in earnest, volunteers and staff have negotiated with border patrols, made arrangements with accommodation providers and sought exceptions to quarantine rules in order to keep their services running.&nbsp;Ms Clarke set up Abortion Support Network to fund abortion travel from Ireland and Northern Ireland to the UK in 2009. After Ireland decriminalised abortion in its 2018 referendum, the charity expanded its services to European countries with strict abortion laws including Poland, Gibraltar and Malta.&nbsp;About a quarter of the cases Abortion Support Network handles now come from Poland, Ms Clarke says. Those who decide to travel usually go to Germany, where abortion on demand is legal up to 14 weeks, or the Netherlands or UK, where the cut-off is 24 weeks.&nbsp;Anyone who is less than&nbsp;12 weeks pregnant can order a medical abortion online and take two pills at home to end their pregnancy. During the pandemic, more and more callers are opting for the pills rather than trying to risk travelling, says Zuzanna Dziuban, a volunteer for Ciocia Basia, or “Auntie Barbara”, a collective which organises accommodation in volunteers’ homes and provides translators for those who travel to Berlin. Ciocia Basia is also part of Abortion Without Borders.&nbsp;Dr Calkin says people have been leaving Poland to get abortions since 1993, when the post-Communist government changed the relatively liberal laws the country had enjoyed under the Iron Curtain to the current restrictions. Before then, it was common for citizens of other countries such as to visit Poland to get abortions.&nbsp;In recent years, the parliament has repeatedly considered measures to restrict access even further. Most recently in April the “Stop Abortion” bill was brought to parliament, which would prohibit the procedure in cases of foetal abnormality, which currently account for the overwhelmingly majority of terminations in Poland.&nbsp; The bill sparked and virtual protests throughout the country in an echo of the that brought a previous attempt to further restrict abortion to a halt.&nbsp;The tug of war between protestors and the government looks set to continue – the bill was sent back for review following the demonstrations.“People in Poland really have to decide if they want to be the black hole on the European map in this regard,” says Draginja Nadazdin, the director of Amnesty International Poland.Since coronavirus hit, not everyone who has contacted Abortion Without Borders wanting an abortion has been able to get one. Ms Clarke says two women were past the cut-off point by the time they arrived at their destination and will have to go through with the pregnancies as a result.&nbsp;Another woman had booked her travel, accommodation and clinic appointment in the UK and was ready to leave, but she could not find child care for her primary school-aged child. Faced with the decision of taking the child with her across three countries in the midst of a pandemic and fearful that she might not be able to get home after the procedure, she decided not to travel.&nbsp;Protect yourself and your family by learning more about&nbsp;Related TopicsAdvertisementRelated TopicsWe rely on advertising to help fund our award-winning journalism.We urge you to turn off your ad blocker for The Telegraph website so that you can continue to access our quality content in the future.Thank you for your support.Need help?Visit ourpage.Close

The woman who called the abortion hotline needed to get from Poland to the UK to get a legal termination.&nbsp;Poland’s airports were closed to the vast majority of flights as part of its , so volunteers from Abortion Without Borders – a network of organisations that give advice on unwanted pregnancies in Poland – organised for her to get permission to cross the border by road into Germany, from where she could fly from Berlin to London.When she got to Berlin, the hotel they had booked for her was closed because of the coronavirus pandemic, so she slept in the airport. Her outbound flight...

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By Megan Clement

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Megan Clement

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The women travelling across Europe to escape Poland's restrictive abortion laws

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