Justyna Wydrzyńska is a Polish abortion-rights activist. She is the first abortion-rights activist in Europe to be convicted of aiding a woman to get an abortion.

Activism

Wydrzyńska launched Kobiety w Sieci, an online website providing information about self-induced medical abortions, after she had her own induced abortion in 2006. In 2016, Wydrzyńska and three other women founded the Abortion Dream Team. In December 2019, Wydrzyńska helped found Abortion Without Borders, an initiative connecting Polish women with abortion providers in Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, the Netherlands, and the UK. In 2023, Wydrzyńska was shortlisted, alongside two other abortion rights activists, for the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

Arrest and trial

In November 2021, Wydrzyńska was arrested after sending abortion pills to a pregnant woman through the mail in 2020. She was charged with "intent to aid an abortion and unauthorized distribution of a pharmaceutical". Wydrzyńska's defense argued that she had sent the abortion pills, but that doing so was "an act of human rights", that she had not aided an abortion, since the pregnant woman had not ended up taking the pills, and that the law against aiding an abortion, as written, should not apply to Wydrzyńska or other similar activists. Her first court date was in August 2022. Representatives from human rights groups and European embassies were denied entry to the proceedings. In March 2023, Wydrzyńska was convicted with abetting an abortion. She was sentenced to 8 month of community service. Her charges and conviction were condemned by

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crim ...

, the International Federation of Gyecology and Obstetrics, the International Planned Parenthood Federation, and the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

Personal life

Wydrzyńska was initially a chemist. As of 2020, she was living in the Polish town of

Przasnysz Przasnysz () is a town in north-central Poland. Located in the Masovian Voivodship, about north of Warsaw and about south of Olsztyn, it is the capital of Przasnysz County. It has 18,093 inhabitants (2004). It was one of the most important towns ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wydrzynska, Justyna Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century Polish people 21st-century Polish women Polish abortion-rights activists Polish women activists