‘We are done waiting': Inside Poland's first abortion centre

• Poland's abortion rules among strictest in Europe
• Activists opened first abortion centre in Warsaw in March
• Centre seeks to help women and fill vacuum left by state

WARSAW - On a clear April morning, Joanna Sagier, her mother Alicja, and her 2-year-old son were the first visitors to the AboTak abortion centre in Warsaw. And they came bearing a bunch of pink tulips.

"Thanks to you, I have a grandson!" Alicja said, embracing Natalia Broniarczyk and Justyna Wydrzyńska, activists with the advocacy group Abortion Dream Team and founders of the centre, which opened in March just across the street from parliament.

The Sagier family first contacted the activists in 2021. Joanna was 15 weeks pregnant, and the fetus had just been diagnosed with Edwards Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder causing severe disability that carries potential risks for the mother too.

When Joanna sought her doctors' advice, she hit a wall.

"My attending physician told me that from that point I would have to manage on my own," she said.

Left to navigate the system alone, Joanna turned to the internet. Her options were bleak: fight for a legal abortion on the grounds of health risk - a process that could take weeks and might ultimately fail - or travel abroad.

She called the Abortion Without Borders hotline, run by a coalition of nine NGOs across Europe that provide information, support and funding for women who need abortions.

Within a week, despite COVID-19 travel restrictions, she was in the Netherlands, where the procedure was carried out.

"If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have been able to get pregnant again and have a healthy child," Joanna said, cradling her son.

Abortion ban

Poland maintains some of the strictest abortion rules in Europe. After the previous nationalist government introduced a near-total ban in 2021, allowing abortions only in cases of rape, incest or threats to the mother's health or life, hundreds of thousands took to the streets in protest.

Despite the regulations, an estimated 120,000 women terminate their pregnancies in Poland annually, 95.4% using abortion pills, 2.9% by travelling abroad and just 1.7% in Polish hospitals, according to Abortion Without Borders.

Anyone who helps a pregnant woman end her pregnancy illegally or encourages her to do so, faces up to three years in prison.

But women themselves are not penalised for having abortions, a legal loophole that allows AboTak to provide a place for women to perform the procedure themselves, although it cannot provide any assistance.

When a pro-European coalition won a 2023 election, Prime Minister Donald Tusk vowed to liberalise the law within 100 days - a promise he later retracted, citing disagreements within the ruling coalition and disappointing the 57% of Poles who want to see abortion access expanded.

Staunchly anti-abortion President Andrzej Duda had also vowed to use his presidential veto to halt any reforms. But Duda cannot stand again in presidential elections on May 18.

Frustrated by the legislative paralysis, activists stepped in to create a space where women can have abortions using pills on their own or along with other people.

"Initially I thought, 'Give them time,'" founder Broniarczyk said. "But when a governing party member told me in December 2024 that they are prepared to accept that abortions will be happening in Polish homes, I laughed in her face and said, 'Thank you very much. We're done waiting.'"

'Maximum confrontation'

The AboTak centre offers space to those who can't safely manage medical abortions at home, such as teenagers, people in abusive relationships and those experiencing early miscarriages.

The centre's interior is playful with graffitied walls and ruby-red curtains. It is meant to be a haven, but anti-abortion protesters gather outside a few times a week, splitting the air with sirens, loudspeakers and recordings of crying babies.

Demonstrators have also poured red paint and foul-smelling butyric acid on the building.

"We will stay there as long as it takes - until this so-called child slaughterhouse is shut down and its founders are held to account," said Laura Lipińska from the Life and Family Foundation, the leading anti-abortion movement in Poland.

"A silent protest would not draw anyone's attention. We are fighting for the right to life," she said in an email.

For Wydrzyńska, a mother of three, opening the centre was deeply personal. In 2006, she was in an abusive relationship and unable to afford an illegal surgical abortion, eventually finding support from a women's network online.

"I know the feeling - panic, isolation, desperation," she said. "Our goal is to provide peace and a sense of community."

Over the years, she has supported countless women through the Abortion Without Borders hotline and was even sentenced to community service for sending abortion pills to a domestic violence survivor during the pandemic.

"There's no solution other than maximum confrontation," she said.

The centre is a resource for women like Michalina, 21, who was the first person to take an abortion pill on the premises in early April. She only gave her first name because of the sensitivity of the subject.

About 30 minutes into the procedure, the pain started. But Michalina had her friend beside her, while Wydrzyńska was in the next room.

"Her presence allowed me to focus on what my body was going through, instead of second-guessing if everything was normal," Michalina explained. After six difficult hours, it was over.

"All the pain and fear suddenly transformed into this incredible relief," she remembered. "I went home and woke up the next morning feeling like I could start a revolution."

Having an abortion in a country where it is practically illegal can be harrowing, Broniarczyk said. "But if you do it on your own terms, it can also be fiercely empowering."

(Reporting by Ada Petriczko; editing by Ayla Jean Yackley.)