Justyna Wydrzyńska helped a pregnant Polish woman have an abortion. The court in Warsaw ordered a human rights activist defending abortion rights to eight months of community service.
19:21•Updated 19:24
Polish human rights activist Justyna Wydrzyńska received a sentence from the Warsaw court on Tuesday. Wydrzyńska, who helped a pregnant woman with an abortion, was ordered to do eight months of community service.
Wydrzyńska had supplied the woman with the abortion pills she wanted.
Wydrzyńska plans to appeal the sentence. He says he has done nothing wrong.
According to Wydrzyńska, the woman she helped was a victim of domestic violence. Her husband had prevented the woman from applying to an abortion clinic abroad.
The woman’s husband also reported her to the police while she was waiting for the abortion pills.
According to the human rights organization Amnesty, this is the first similar legal case in Europe.
– This is the first case in Europe where an activist has been prosecuted because he has helped in an abortion by supplying abortion pills, Amnesty stated last year before the start of the trial.
An almost complete ban on abortion came into force in Poland in 2021. It allows abortion in practice only if the pregnancy has started from rape or the woman’s life is in danger because of the pregnancy.
The law sparked widespread protests in the country and drew criticism from human rights organizations.