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Accepted Paper:
The Abortion Dream Team: “Contemporary Women’s Hell”, Abortion Self-Care and the Aesthetics of Reproduction in Poland
Agnieszka Balcerzak
(LMU Munich)
Poland has one of the most draconian abortion laws in Europe and a “conscience clause” allowing doctors to refuse to perform an abortion due to moral or religious convictions. The “Abortion Dream Team” stands against this ban by informing women how to obtain and self-manage medical abortion.
Paper long abstract:
Political struggles over conception, contraception, and pregnancy termination are longstanding in Poland. Contemporary Women’s Hell, under this title the leading Polish feminist organisation FEDERA published already in the mid-2000s its arousing report on the lack of safe abortion services in Poland. In early 2021, after a long “war on abortion” that has polarized the country, the near-total abortion ban came into effect. In Poland, abortion is now only permitted in situations of risk to the life or health of a pregnant woman, or if a pregnancy results from rape. In practice, however, it is almost impossible for those eligible for a legal abortion to obtain one. Every year thousands of women leave Poland to access abortion care in other European countries, while others import medical abortion pills. Furthermore, the ruling came as the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions made travel for abortion prohibitively difficult and costly. Since 2016, the feminist initiative “Abortion Dream Team” with its provocative motto “Abortion is OK” opposes the ban by organizing pro-choice demonstrations and workshops teaching women how to obtain and self-manage a medical abortion. Only over the last year, the rule-breaking collective and founding member of the international initiative “Abortion Without Borders”, have helped 34.000 women from Poland to fulfil their “abortion hopes” and overcome their reproductive immobility. Drawing on approaches to network theory, the politics of aesthetics, and protest mobilization, the presented paper investigates the logics and strategies of abortion access in Poland by taking the nexus of politics, religion, and feminist activism into account.