Poland is experiencing a coordinated and escalating campaign of anti-abortion intimidation and disinformation that directly undermines women’s access to lawful healthcare. This campaign is driven by fundamentalist actors and increasingly reinforced by political figures and state institutions that legitimize and amplify these practices. Together, these dynamics create a climate in which legally guaranteed medical services are systematically obstructed through fear, harassment, and institutional pressure.
Abortion Access in Poland: Law and Reality
Poland has one of the most restrictive abortion legislations in Europe. Following politically captured rulings of the Constitutional Tribunal, abortion is now effectively permitted only when a pregnancy poses a threat to a woman’s life or health, or when it results from a criminal act.
In practice, even these limited legal grounds are routinely denied. When acting within the lawful exceptions, doctors do not face a genuine risk of criminal liability. However, they are subjected to a deliberate and sustained climate of intimidation. Anti-abortion activists have publicly threatened healthcare providers with future criminal prosecution in the event of political change and further politicization of the prosecution service.
As a result, hospitals frequently refuse care, delay procedures, or impose additional non-medical requirements. Access to fully lawful abortion care depends on a very small number of doctors and facilities operating under constant political pressure and informal surveillance, despite acting in full compliance with the law.
In practice, disinformation has long been used to narrow the scope of the health exception, particularly by falsely claiming that only immediate physical danger can justify lawful abortion. This narrative has been conclusively challenged. It has been formally confirmed that a serious threat to a woman’s mental health constitutes a lawful ground for abortion on equal footing with physical health risks, providing legal certainty for both patients and healthcare providers. This clarification, achieved through sustained legal and institutional advocacy led by FEDERA (Foundation for Women and Family Planning), removes any remaining basis for denying care on psychiatric health grounds—yet intimidation and obstruction persist.
Political Legitimation of Intimidation
The climate of fear surrounding lawful abortion care has been further intensified by the conduct of public officials who have repeatedly targeted doctors and hospitals providing legal services. Through public statements, parliamentary activity, and political interventions, medical professionals are portrayed as criminals, effectively encouraging harassment and legitimizing intimidation. Such actions normalize attacks on healthcare providers and signal institutional acceptance of abuse.
Tactics of Harassment and Obstruction
Fundamentalist groups employ coordinated tactics designed to intimidate patients and obstruct access to lawful healthcare. These tactics include the placement of large-format, graphic banners along highways and major roads, roaming pickets and demonstrations at hospitals, and the mass distribution of anti-abortion propaganda.
These actions deliberately stigmatize women seeking care and interfere with the provision of medical services. Importantly, such campaigns are financed through public fundraising and sustained by networks of private donors, who materially enable and legitimize harassment strategies. Political interventions by public officials further embolden these groups, transforming isolated acts of intimidation into coordinated, nationwide pressure campaigns.
Instrumentalization of State Institutions
State institutions are increasingly being used to exert pressure on hospitals that provide legal abortion services. Prosecutorial actions have included demands for patient medical documentation following complaints filed by fundamentalist actors, despite the procedures in question being fully lawful.
These interventions create a chilling effect. Doctors and hospital management are forced to divert time and resources toward defending patients and staff from harassment rather than providing care. The threat of administrative or criminal scrutiny—regardless of legal merit—functions as a powerful deterrent.
At the same time, anti-abortion demonstrations are increasingly taking place directly on hospital grounds. Patients, including those experiencing pregnancy loss or attempting to maintain wanted pregnancies, are exposed to graphic imagery and verbal abuse. This constitutes a direct threat to patients’ mental health, dignity, and safety, and severely disrupts the ability of medical staff to work without interference.
Retaliation Against Doctors
The climate of intimidation is reinforced through professional retaliation against doctors who provide lawful abortion care. Physicians ensuring consistent access to legal services have been removed from hospital positions following recruitment or employment processes marked by serious procedural irregularities, including altered criteria and changing rules during selection.
Although some affected doctors have secured alternative employment, the retaliatory nature of these actions remains evident. The consequences are systemic. Patients from across the country risk losing access to care, while medical professionals acting fully in accordance with the law are subjected to professional exclusion intended to deter others from providing lawful services.
Notably, prosecutorial authorities have confirmed the legality of contested procedures. Despite this, challenges to prosecutorial decisions have been initiated by senior judicial figures whose own appointments are subject to serious legal and constitutional doubts. This illustrates how erosion of the rule of law and politicization of the judiciary directly undermine women’s rights and legal certainty for healthcare providers.
A Broader Anti-Rights Ecosystem
These developments are not isolated incidents. They form part of a broader, increasingly professionalized anti-choice movement operating across Poland. Well-resourced organizations coordinate legal strategies, media campaigns, and political pressure aimed not only at dismantling reproductive rights, but also at weakening protections for LGBTQ+ people and eroding democratic norms more broadly.
This ecosystem relies on disinformation, institutional capture, and the normalization of intimidation as a legitimate political strategy. The targeting of abortion care functions as both a goal and a testing ground for broader attacks on the rule of law and fundamental rights.
Response and Demands
As FEDERA (Foundation for Women and Family Planning), which hosts the ASTRA Network, we are responding by mobilizing public support, launching petitions to defend doctors and hospitals acting in accordance with Polish law, and calling on city and national authorities to establish safe buffer zones around medical facilities. Polish law already empowers municipalities to ban assemblies that threaten life or health. We demand that these powers be used—urgently—so that women in Poland can access healthcare without fear, intimidation, or psychological violence.
For more information or media inquiries, please contact National Advocacy Coordinator Antonina Lewandowska alewandowska@federa.org.pl
