This new initiative launched on 12December 2019 aims to help anyone in Poland who contacts them to access a safeabortion, either in Poland or abroad. The group is the result of collaborationbetween activist groups in four countries. Anyone who wants information aboutabortion can contact Kobiety W Sieci (Poland), who have more than 13 years ofexperience providing pregnancy options counselling, including unbiased, factualinformation about abortion. Any caller who wishes to obtain an abortion will bereferred to the Abortion Dream Team (Poland), Women Help Women (global), CiociaBasia (Germany), Abortion Network Amsterdam (Netherlands) or Abortion SupportNetwork (United Kingdom) and given information about safe medical abortionpills, internet sources for abortion pills and counselling, advice on abortionclinics, help arranging travel and accommodation, and/or funding towards thecost of abortion abroad.
HELPLINE for service users: +48 222922597 open from 8am to 8pm daily. Or go to: www.aborcjabezgranic.pl
Abortion withoutBorders will help as many people as they can with information, practicalsupport, creative problem solving, and, where required and available, withfunding. Abortion Without Borders believes that getting an abortion shouldn’tdepend on where someone is born and what passport they carry. Abortion WithoutBorders welcomes anyone who is for safe, legal, accessible abortion, regardlessof age, gender, faith or nationality. Until everyone who needs an abortion canget one locally, we will be here.
Mara Clarke, from ASN,reports: “The very first call to the helpline, which opened at 12:30pm on 11December, literally just when it opened, was from a woman who said: “Thank youso much for doing this. I had an abortion three weeks ago and I felt completelyalone. And now I don’t.” Between then and 8pm on Tuesday 17 December, thehelpline received 186 calls and emails from women in Poland seeking informationand advice on accessing a safe abortion.”
Abortion WithoutBorders stress that all their activities are all legal.
SOURCE: AbortionSupport Network, Phone call 17 December 2019, and Press release, 12 December2019 ; PHOTO: People gather to protestagainst plans to further restrict abortion laws in Warsaw, Poland, 17 January2018. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel.