Short Abstract

In this round-table, we will discuss abortion governance and abortion decriminalization and demedicalisation in Europe, based on the documentary by Karolina Domagalska (2024) on the Polish Abortion Dream Team and on the existing research on these topics in social sciences.

Long Abstract

In the European Union only a few countries have a very restrictive law on abortion, meaning that abortion is prohibited altogether, or that it is only allowed on very few grounds, in particular Malta and Poland. In these two countries pregnant people needing an abortion usually have self-managed medication abortions (SMMA), or travel cross-borders, particularly in the second trimester, thanks to national organisations like the Polish Abortion Dream Team and the Maltese Doctors for Choice, and transnational organisations like Women on Web, Women Help Women and Abortion Without Borders.

In its last guidelines the WHO (2022) clarified that SMMA is safe even if provided by non-medical, trained persons. However, in Europe it was allowed during the pandemic only in a few countries, while it is still illegal in most countries with legal abortion. The pandemic has generated a growing political debate on the need for abortion demedicalisation and decriminalization and on the importance of feminist models of accompaniment to abortion care, and these topics have been increasingly discussed in the anthropological and public health domains.

In this round-table, we will discuss with activists and anthropologists abortion governance and different strategies adopted to decriminalize and demedicalize abortion in European countries in which abortion is a polarized topic of debate, like Poland. A point of departure of our discussion will be Karolina Domagalska’s documentary on the Polish “Abortion Dream Team” (2024) about the everyday struggles of Polish activists who provide abortion care to Polish people.