The Politics of Abortion in Poland: Knowing, Counting, and Criminalizing

Poland offered safe, legal, and state-subsidized abortion for several decades before it dramatically restricted abortion after the collapse of the communist regime. Today, it imposes a near total-abortion ban that holds out the theoretical possibility of live-saving abortion that cannot be obtained in practice. Its abortion ban, instituted in 1993, saw a large underground abortion system develop in Poland, of which abortion pills are a central part today. This paper situates abortion pills in the transformation in Poland’s abortion geography, legal framework and system of abortion provision. It advances two linked arguments. First, on the legal geography of clandestine abortion: clandestine abortion in Poland is enabled by the fact that self-managed abortion with pills is not a crime for the person who uses the pills. This is the product of changes in abortion’s spatiality since 1993. Second, on the politics of ‘knowing’ about clandestine abortion: despite estimates that hundreds of thousands obtain abortion every year, the extremely conservative government ignores and obfuscates data on the subject, instead arguing that its abortion ban is obeyed. The ambiguous and contested legal status of clandestine abortion generates different ways for stakeholders to account for Polish abortions, in line with their strategic interests. The paper draws on interviews with Polish activists, lawyers, and politicians, as well as government and court documents.