A Warsaw court sentenced activist Justyna Wydrzynska to eight months of community service on Tuesday for allegedly abetting an illegal abortion, the first time such a case has gone to court in Poland, according to BBC News Russian.
Wydrzynska works with the abortion-care organization Aborcyjny Dream Team (which Meduza has written about before). In February 2020, she mailed abortion pills to a woman who reached out to the organization for help after her abusive partner refused to let her go to Germany to get a surgical abortion. The organization had previously mailed abortion pills to clients, but always from abroad, which is legal; never from inside Poland.
The package with the pills was discovered by the pregnant woman’s husband, who informed the police. Wydrzynska was then charged with “illegally abetting an abortion” and trafficking medical products (she was later acquitted of the second charge).
Wydrzynska pleaded not guilty to the charges against her and plans to appeal her sentence.
