Despite legal abortion access, foreign women—especially non-EU nationals—face bureaucratic, financial, and legal hurdles that can delay or deny abortion care.
Abortion is legal in Czechia, but foreign women, particularly those from outside the EU, face numerous obstacles when seeking safe and timely abortion care. The latest report from the Abortion Support Alliance Prague (ASAP), found that nearly half of the 70-plus state hospitals surveyed were uncertain about providing abortions to non-citizens, while 43% of hospitals refused to provide abortion services to EU citizens, either due to legal uncertainty or restrictive internal policies.
“We’ve seen many non-EU residents, often with limited support networks, struggling to access services here,” says Jolanta Nowaczyk of ASAP, who tells us that non-EU nationals are frequently advised to seek care outside Czechia.
Legal ambiguity stems from outdated laws that state abortion should not be provided to foreign nationals “temporarily” residing in the country. While EU citizens are supposedly guaranteed access, they do not necessarily receive help, and the laws for non-EU citizens are described as even more complex, the bottom line being that many who could do so do not wish to provide abortions. Many hospitals follow a conservative interpretation advised by the Czech Medical Chamber, leading to significant disparities in abortion access, based on a woman’s nationality.
Articles in Expats-cz going back to 2021, give contradictory views on what is legal and what is not. The bottom line is that a lot of women in Czechia are unable to access an abortion when they need one.
SOURCES: Expats–cz, by Elizabeth Zahradnicek-Haas, 10 March 2025, plus photo ; Vanguard Nigeria