Inside a Czech Abortion Network Offering Pregnant Women from Poland a Lifeline

Eva Ptasková was waiting in a dimly lit parking lot near the Czech-Polish border at 4 a.m. for someone she’d never met.

“It was empty and dark,” Ptasková recalled about the unusual mid-pandemic encounter, adding that she kept her colleague on the phone for safety. 

Eventually, a figure exited a taxi and clambered into Ptasková’s car — a woman from Poland, who had traveled to the neighboring Czech Republic for an abortion. With just hours to spare before the appointment, Ptašková listened to the woman recount her life story as they drove through the night. It was the first time the Polish woman, who was already a mother to a young baby, had left her homeland.

“I started telling her how the fact that she has come here, and the fact that she wants to do this, is a good enough reason for me and a good enough reason for anybody,” Ptašková said. “If she feels this is the right choice for her family and she needs to do this, it’s fine.” 

At this point, Ptasková noticed her passenger was sobbing. “I realized nobody [had ever] told her this,” she said. “There's nobody she could talk to and hear any kind of encouragement.” The moment stuck with Ptašková, a member of Ciocia Czesia, a volunteer-led organization that helps Polish women secure safe abortions in the Czech Republic, laying bare the desperation behind Poland’s draconian abortion laws and the stigma surrounding the topic just beyond the border.

Poland has one of Europe’s strictest abortion laws, imposing a near-total ban on abortion procedures except in cases of rape, incest, or when a mother’s life is at risk. The Eastern European country, where almost three-quarters of citizens identify as Roman Catholic, has enforced restrictive abortion measures for nearly three decades. Abortion rights suffered yet its most crucial blow in 2020, when Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal outlawed abortions in cases of fetal impairment, or conditions that are life-threatening or serious to the fetus. 

“Even in these exceptional situations, abortion is often inaccessible due to systemic barriers, legal uncertainty, and fear of prosecution,” said Adriana Lamacková, the Associate Director for Europe at the Center for Reproductive Rights. 

Advocates like Lamacková warn that Poland's abortion laws are intentionally shrouded in ambiguity. Statistics are scarce, but at least six women reportedly died between 2020 and 2022 after doctors refused to provide abortion care even in legal instances, fearing legal retribution and encouraging an environment of fear that “isolates women in urgent need,” Lamacková added. 

Against these odds, a clandestine grassroots network made up of collectives, advocates, medical professionals, and organizations like Ciocia Czesia has filled the void. In the Czech Republic, where abortions are legal for up to 12 weeks, Ciocia Czesia works as a crucial conduit between Polish women seeking abortion and the vetted abortion clinics across the Czech Republic with Polish-speaking staff. The group also provides step-by-step guidance, emotional support, and financial assistance when needed.

‘Ciocia,’ Ptasková explains, is the Czech word for ‘aunty’: “It's this trusted person that you can tell more stuff than you can even tell your parents.” Dedicated to offering judgment-free support, Ciocia Czesia has often served as the only option pregnant people have when seeking to end their unwanted pregnancies. “They just feel so alone because it's so incredibly stigmatized, and they're made to believe that they're doing something illegal and absolutely horrendous,” Ptasková added, explaining many come from rural areas in Poland where they have no one to confide in. 

Five years since mobilizing, the group shows no sign of slowing down. They’ve received over 5,000 enquiries since 2020, helping as many as 150 people in a single month. 

Local reports reveal there were just 896 recorded terminations at hospitals in Poland in 2024, but Abortion Without Borders (AWB) — an initiative made up of nine organizations across Europe — estimates that there are actually up to 150,000 terminations each year. 

Self-managed abortion using pills remains one of the most accessible options for people in Poland — and critically, it’s not criminalized. In 2024, the AWB network helped tens of thousands of people, the youngest being 12 years old, access necessary care through self-managed abortions and overseas terminations. 

These organizations don’t just offer practical guidance; in many cases, they’re a source of hope, dignity, and solidarity.

“[Upon launching in Poland], the first phone call we got was from someone who said, ‘I had an abortion three weeks ago. Now I don't feel alone anymore,” said Mara Clarke, a founding member of AWB and co-founder of a Dutch-based abortion fund called SAFE. Despite the immense challenges facing Polish women, Clarke added that the people they help aren’t victims. “We don't look at these women as vulnerable and desperate. I think women are strong and amazing,” Clarke reiterated, a sentiment shared by many of the advocates in this network. 

While AWB and its sister organizations have worked to meet the urgent needs of pregnant women in Poland, the country’s political dialogue surrounding maternal healthcare has been stagnant. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk won his election on a platform that promised to reform Poland’s abortion laws within his first 100 days in office. But advocates warn that the day came and went with little change, with Tusk claiming he lacks the majority in his parliamentary coalition to enact any impactful changes.

As a result of the political stalemate, grassroots resistance against Poland’s abortion laws is becoming bolder. One of the clearest signs was the opening of Warsaw’s first abortion-focused center by the Abortion Dream Team in March. The team offers a safe space for women to take abortion pills, pregnancy tests, and medical advice. 

Justyna Wydrzynska, the co-founder of Abortion Dream Team, said opening the center felt “absolutely amazing.” Located in the heart of Poland’s political district, it’s not just a critical lifeline, but it’s also a statement. “There was also a kind of fear,” she added about the opening,  “because we knew that immediately we would start to be an object for the anti-abortion movement.”

While these organizations have sought legal assistance to ensure they are working within the limits of the law, they also face uncertainty. Wydrzynska knows the risks too well, after she became the first person in Europe to be convicted of abetting an abortion for helping a pregnant woman in an abusive relationship access abortion pills. 

Speaking to MTHS, Wydrzynska recalled how officers searched her home and confiscated her family’s devices at the time. “It was a very stressful moment,” she said, maintaining that despite the challenges, she has no regrets. Wydrzynska is now awaiting retrial in the case that has consumed several years of her life after a court ruled that she hadn’t received a fair trial.  She is not necessarily optimistic about the outcome, yet her commitment to defending human rights remains unwavering. 

“When I started to do my work, people didn't know what to do,” Justyna said. But through their efforts, “everybody knows that abortion pills are safe, everybody knows where to order them, what the names of the pills are, and that this is legal in Poland. So this is our work.” 

Although the abortion rights defenders supporting pregnant people across Poland remain, as Clarke put it, “aggressively optimistic” about the future, their warnings paint a more sobering reality: the fight for reproductive freedom in Europe is far from over, and it’s not constrained to Poland either.

As abortion rights face threats across the globe, often in line with far-right politics, campaigners warn of a familiar pattern. “Abortion is the litmus,” Clarke said. Originally from the United States, she drew some alarming comparisons between the rollback of reproductive rights in the U.S. and Europe. “First they come for the abortions, then they come for the queers, the migrants, the refugees, people of color, and the poor.”

Europe, she argued, was also never as safe as it seemed. “There was never any money for sexual and reproductive health in Europe in the first place. Because everybody thinks everything’s fine here —there’s no fascism here, no patriarchy. Except there is.”

Despite this, they haven’t lost hope: “We still have time to keep it from happening here.”