A Polish court sentenced an abortion activist who helped a pregnant mother obtain illegal abortion drugs to eight months of community service on Tuesday.
Irish Legal News reports Justyna Wydrzyńska, 48, the co-founder of the Abortion Dream Team, could have faced up to three years in prison, but the Warsaw court sentenced her to community service and a fine instead.
Wydrzyńska insisted she is “innocent,” and her lawyers said she plans to appeal, according to the report.
Poland is one of the few countries in Europe that protects unborn babies’ right to life. Abortions are illegal except in cases of rape, incest or threats to the mother’s life.
Wydrzyńska is the first abortion activist to be convicted of breaking the abortion ban after she helped a pregnant woman get abortion drugs in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, The Independent reports. The law exempts mothers from punishment.
Her case has drawn international outrage from abortion activists. Agnès Callamard, the secretary general of Amnesty International, defended Wydrzyńska’s actions by claiming that abortion is a “right,” not a “crime,” according to Irish Legal News.
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“Justyna should have never been put on trial in the first place because what she did should never be a crime,” Callamard said. “By supporting a woman who asked for help, Justyna showed compassion. By defending the right to safe abortion in Poland, Justyna showed courage. Today’s craven judgment shows neither. The conviction must be overturned.”
According to Al Jazeera, Irene Donadio, of the International Planned Parenthood Federation European Network in Brussels, suggested Wydrzyńska received a light sentence only because Poland is holding an election soon and lawmakers do not want to stir up more outrage.
However, it also could be because the abortion pills never actually were used to kill the unborn baby.
In 2020, a woman contacted Wydrzyńska’s abortion group as the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns were beginning, according to the Independent. The woman allegedly told Wydrzyńska that she had an abusive husband and, when she tried to travel outside the country to an abortion facility, he stopped her.
Typically, Wydrzyńska’s group refers women to other pro-abortion groups outside the country that sell abortion drugs through the mail, but, because of the pandemic, Wydrzyńska decided to give abortion drugs to the woman herself, the report continues.
However, the woman’s husband found out and called police, and the police confiscated the abortion drugs before the woman could take them; she later had a miscarriage, according to the report.
In a separate case, three other Polish pro-abortion leaders also are facing multiple charges related to organizing a violent protest in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
LifeNews previously covered how one of the leaders, All-Poland Women’s Strike (Ogólnopolski Strajk Kobiet, or OSK) leader Marta Lempart, encouraged violence in an Oct. 26, 2020 Radio ZET interview. When asked about disrupting and vandalizing churches, Lempart responded: “Of course you should do that. You should do what you feel, what you think, what is effective and what they deserve.”
Poland has some of the strongest legal protections for unborn babies in Europe, and polls show a “silent majority” supports pro-life laws.
In 2020, the country’s Constitutional Court struck down an exception that had allowed unborn babies with disabilities to be aborted. Now, abortions are prohibited except in cases of rape, incest or threats to the mother’s life.
