Paper Short Abstract:

Drawing on interviews with abortion activists from Europe and Polish women who use their support, this paper argues that collective practices of abortion provision produce new non-stigmatising norms around abortion and, in spite of their extra-legal aspect, foster a sense of ontological safety in the women who use their services.

Paper Abstract:

In Poland abortion is currently allowed only on two grounds: if pregnancy poses a threat to the life or health of a woman and if pregnancy is a result of a crime. The abortion laws in Poland, in spite of prohibiting abortion almost in all cases, neither penalise individuals who terminate their pregnancies through medication abortion nor people who have abortions in another country. The grey area created by the ambivalences of the Polish laws is used by abortion support groups that facilitate medical and clinic-based abortions for Polish women. Abortion support groups are grassroots, mutual-aid, feminist collectives that facilitate abortion pill provision in Poland and clinic-based abortions outside of Poland. Over the last decade more than a dozen of such groups have emerged across Europe as a response to the anti-abortion campaign led by the Catholic Church and the Polish far-right government. Currently, these groups facilitate a majority of abortions undergone by Polish women. This paper empirically draws on the interviews with activists from these groups based in Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Austria and the UK, and stories of Polish women who had abortion with their support. I argue that abortion support groups through their collective practices of abortion provision produce new non-stigmatising norms around abortion and, in spite of their extra-legal aspect, foster a sense of ontological safety in the women who use their services.