The Symbolic Sentence

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A Polish court sentenced an activist to eight months of community service for helping a woman obtain abortion pills to terminate her pregnancy, in a case that has drawn fresh scrutiny on Poland’s near-total ban on the procedure, the BBC reported.

Justyna Wydrzynska became the first activist to be tried in Poland for aiding a woman to have an abortion.

During the trial, Wydrzynska said she had sent a package of abortion pills to the woman – referred to as Ania – when she found out she was in an abusive relationship. Ania had initially planned to terminate her pregnancy at a clinic in neighboring Germany but was unable to travel because of the Covid-19 lockdown.

But when Ania’s partner discovered the pills, he confiscated them and reported Wydrzynska to the authorities. Ania later reportedly suffered a miscarriage.

The activist said she will appeal the ruling, maintaining that she was innocent and that the Polish state had failed her, Ania and other women.

Her case drew fierce criticism from human rights groups, United Nations officials and gynecologists, with Amnesty International calling the sentence a “depressing low in the repression of reproductive rights in Poland.”

Protesters from both sides were outside the courtroom, with anti-abortion demonstrators saying the ruling was too lenient. It isn’t a crime in Poland to have an abortion, only to facilitate one.

Following a ruling by Poland’s Constitutional Court in 2020, abortion has been only allowed in cases of rape, incest or when the pregnancy endangers the mother’s health.

Advocates and women’s rights organizations say the 2020 ruling has had a chilling effect on doctors, who now fear penalties even when there are legal grounds for an abortion.

The government had to update guidelines after a pregnant woman died in a Polish hospital in 2021, spurring protests. The woman, 30, died of septic shock as doctors waited for her unborn baby to die.

Her family said the laws prevented doctors from intervening.