Europe | Choice v life

Poland’s ruling coalition divides over women’s rights

Donald Tusk has failed to keep his promises on abortion laws

A demonstrator holds up a clothes hanger, a symbol of underground abortion, during a demonstration of women and pro choice activists in front of the Polish Parliament in Warsaw
Let down by TuskPhotograph: AFP

A FLAT IN Warsaw will soon become Poland’s first abortion clinic. The interior, designed like a teenage girl’s bedroom, reflects the reality of abortions in a country where they are in effect illegal: most of them happen at home, the woman unassisted and alone. Abortion Dream Team, the charity behind the project, says that every day around 130 girls and women contact it for help in ending their pregnancies. The clinic, which will operate in a legal grey zone, will give them space to do so—with a comfy sofa and films to distract them while they take abortion pills.

Explore more

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Failure to deliver”

From the September 14th 2024 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

Discover more

Miners work underground near the city of Pokrovsk, Ukraine.

Why Russia is trying to seize a vital Ukrainian coal mine

Without it, the country’s remaining steel industry will be crippled

The search for Ukraine’s missing soldiers and sailors

The families of missing loved ones are trying to find them, alive or dead


A big truck emblazoned with the US flag on the side and the words MAGA above the cab (which resembles Donald Trump's face) flies over the brow of a hill. A startled deer is caught in the headlights

Europe could become Trump’s geopolitical roadkill

A second dose of MAGA will put the EU in a pickle


Russia continues to advance in eastern Ukraine

But it is encountering growing problems

Turkey’s long hard struggle with inflation

High interest rates are starting to do the trick

Delays on Italy’s spruced-up trains have got worse

Matteo Salvini is making feeble excuses