Poles have been traveling to surrounding countries for more accessible abortions since the 1990s, when the Polish parliament limited terminations to cases involving rape or incest; serious threats to the health of the mother; or significant, irreversible damage to the fetus. For the past 25 years, Germany has offered border-hoppers access to elective abortions in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.It has also given them opportunities to terminate some troubled later-term pregnancies—or even just obtain thorough information about the health of their fetuses—that have dwindled in Poland as restrictions have further tightened.In the story of the Polish ban, Germany has been painted simply as a refuge for people with nowhere else to go. As an abortion haven, however, it presents complications. Germany may have become a port in the storm for desperate Poles, but it wasn’t all too long ago that the country was in a situation in some ways similar to Poland, with pregnant Germans crossing borders by the thousands in search of options and the German high court declaring abortion a violation of inalienable constitutional rights.In the story of the Polish ban, Germany has been painted simply as a refuge for people with nowhere else to go. As an abortion haven, however, it presents complications.
When someone reaches out to the organization who’s already more than 12 weeks into their pregnancy, the obstacles are more formidable. “When it comes to so-called late-term abortion cases it’s very difficult to organize in Germany,” Pfautsch said. Securing an abortion in those cases often means traveling to a more permissive European country, bypassing Germany and its restrictions entirely. The present restrictions have been in place, more or less unchanged, since 1995. They represent a compromise struck by the newly reunified German nation—a compromise that was implemented, like Poland’s current policy, as Poland and East Germany stepped out from under the umbrella of Soviet influence. The two countries emerged from those formative years with different identities in Europe’s abortion landscape: Poland as the most restrictive nation from the former Eastern bloc, Germany as a test case for a middle path.Until then, Germany and Poland had navigated similar territory in abortion policy. Abortion was wholly illegal in both countries in the 19th century; in the early 20th century, both Germany—in the 1920s—and Poland—in the 1930s—began introducing limited exceptions to those bans. Then came the Nazis. In both Germany and occupied Poland, they carried out involuntary abortions for mothers they deemed racially unfit and forbade abortions in almost all cases for those they considered worthy of passing on genes. In the post-war years, both Poland and East Germany rolled back those Nazi policies and then kept rolling, making abortion generally available upon request by the 1970s.Unbeknownst to many, all abortions in Germany are still technically illegal, and have been for nearly 150 years.
Protestors take part in a pro-choice demonstration in front of the constitutional court in Warsaw, Poland, on January 28, 2021. (Photo by WOJTEK RADWANSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
Over the past decade, central and eastern European countries like Russia, Macedonia, and Slovakia have sought to tighten restrictions on abortion by implementing versions of Germany’s counseling requirement and waiting period.