Justyna Wydrzyńsk - Abortion Dream Team
The case of Justyna Wydrzyńska in Poland shows the dangers of abortion prohibitive laws.
Justyna is a feminist activist defending the human right to health, which includes access to information. She has been charged under Polish laws for providing information about self-managed abortion to Ania, a woman who was suffering violence perpetrated by an abusive husband. In Poland, people who have abortions are not criminalized under Polish law, but those who directly help them are. This scenario creates barriers to abortion care and persecutes human rights defenders like Justyna who is now facing up to three years in prison.
In her statement, during the first court hearing, Justyna said: “I wanted her [Ania] to be able to make a decision about herself. I didn’t want her to have an abortion, I wanted her to have her own choice, I wanted her to be able to decide holding the pills in her hand.”
Together with our partners from Brazil and Ecuador, ANIS and CEPAM-Guayaquil, Fòs Feminista presented an amicus brief to the court in support of Justyna.
“To provide quality evidence-based information about self-managed abortion is a form of protecting the right to health and ensuring the crucial component of information accessibility. It is a duty for human rights defenders who base their work on the highest-quality evidence available in healthcare and human rights law” says the Amicus regarding the case.
The next hearing in Justyna’s trial will take place on July 14. Fòs Feminista demands that the Polish authorities drop the charges because no one should be criminalized for having an abortion or helping someone to do so.
You can read more about the case in the Abortion Dream Team-Poland’s newsletter.
#AbortionIsEssential #JakJustyna
