Ms. Wydrzynska, who has been an abortion rights activist in Poland for the previous 16 years, stated in an interview final summer time with The Occasions that she had at all times been cautious to offer solely directions on shopping for and utilizing abortion medicines, and to not present the capsules themselves.
However in February 2020, she stated within the interview, she obtained a determined message from a girl recognized as Anna who was looking for an abortion. The decision from the lady, who, the courtroom heard, was in an abusive relationship, revived Ms. Wydrzynska’s personal traumatic recollections of a violent relationship and getting an abortion. It prompted her, she stated, to do one thing she had by no means performed earlier than — ship the lady a bundle of capsules.
“I despatched Anna capsules as a result of I came upon that she had skilled violence like me,” Ms. Wydrzynska advised the courtroom in her closing assertion on Tuesday, barely holding again tears.
The lady’s accomplice learn the messages between the 2 ladies, the courtroom heard, and reported Ms. Wydrzynska to the police. She was charged with “possession of medicine with out authorization with the intention to place them in the marketplace” and “aiding abortion.” The courtroom in Warsaw discovered Ms. Wydrzynska responsible of aiding abortion by sending misoprostol capsules, an abortion treatment, and sentenced her to 30 hours of neighborhood service a month for eight months.
Ordo Iuris, a Polish Catholic authorized group and anti-abortion group that was registered as a civil social gathering within the trial, had demanded jail time for Ms. Wydrzynska however had no authorized proper to take action.
A consultant of the group, Magdalena Majkowska, advised the courtroom on Tuesday that Ms. Wydrzynska’s conviction ought to “be considered a big step in the direction of actual respect for the fitting to lifetime of unborn kids in Poland.”
Ms. Wydrzynska stated the courtroom’s justification for its determination had not been made public.
“I’m harmless,” she stated. “I say it loudly — the state is guilty. It has failed me, Anna, Iza from Pszczyna, Agnieszka from Częstochowa and tens of millions of ladies on this nation,” she added, referring to the ladies who died after having been refused abortions.
