Thousands Protest Across Poland for Free and Legal Abortion as Government Promises Face Angry Questions
Thousands of people have protested in more than 20 towns and cities across Poland, demanding access to free and legal abortion services. The demonstrations were held on the sixth anniversary of a near-total abortion ban imposed by the country's highest court, and the anger on the streets was directed largely at the ruling government's unfulfilled promises.
Abortion is currently legal in Poland in only two situations: when a pregnancy results from a criminal act such as rape or incest, or when it threatens the life or health of the mother. Outside those cases, women have no legal route to abortion care, a situation campaigners say pushes many towards unsafe informal channels.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk's government promised to liberalise abortion laws ahead of its 2023 election victory. But once in power, divisions within the coalition slowed progress. That gap between promise and delivery became the main fuel for this week's protests.
The demonstrations came days after parliament passed two bills that would ease abortion restrictions in the mostly Catholic country. Both, however, are expected to be vetoed by Poland's conservative President Karol Nawrocki, leaving the road to legal change blocked for now, activists say.
Passing the draft laws a year before the next parliamentary election is a case of token gestures rather than a genuine effort to reform abortion law, said Zofia Marcinek of the Abortion Dream Team, a reproductive rights activist group in Warsaw. She said the liberal government knows the bills stand no chance of surviving Nawrocki's veto, and has merely tried to create the impression of taking action because it needs women's support to win elections next year.
In the capital, Warsaw, about 1,000 protesters demonstrated in front of parliament despite rain. Their slogans and placards spoke of six years of waiting and frustration, while rallies with the same demand were held in many other cities on the same day.
"Over the last six years, nothing has really changed," said 36-year-old Emilia Niemiec, who manages the AboTak abortion centre, which provides women with access to resources, including pills, and a space where they can seek support or carry out a pharmacological abortion.
Restrictive abortion laws have been in place in Poland since 1993, with Polish women leading calls for the legalisation of abortion ever since. In 2016, nationwide demonstrations took place, with women donning black as a sign of protest.
But rather than being relaxed, Poland's abortion laws were tightened further in 2020, when the country's highest court, under the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government, banned abortions of foetuses with congenital defects. This week's protests were called on the anniversary of that ruling.
Despite the laws, abortions remain common in Poland, with the overwhelming majority carried out by women at home using pills obtained from outside the country. Women who undergo abortions, including by taking pills, do not face criminal responsibility under Polish law, but people who help them, including doctors and family members, can potentially be prosecuted.
Polish hospitals performed 573 abortions in the first half of 2026, compared with 452 in the whole of 2022, before Tusk came to power, according to data from the National Health Fund. But activists say tens of thousands of abortions happen every year outside hospitals, entirely off the official record.
Campaigners organising Thursday's protests say the Tusk government has betrayed Polish women, and that its claims that access has improved have actually complicated getting care for some. "The government's promises act as a type of disinformation," Marcinek said. "Women getting pregnant hear the prime minister say that everything is OK, that there is access to abortion, and then they end up in the hospital and see that is not the case. So they come to us when it's very late and very complicated and expensive to help them."
The abortion question in Poland now sits at the centre of law, politics and electoral calculation. The fate of the two bills rests with the president, while the protests on the streets signal that women's patience with the politics of promises is running out.
