Justyna Wydrzyńska

Justyna Wydrzyńska is a Polish abortion-rights activist. She is the first abortion-rights activist in Europe to be convicted for aiding in helping a woman 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, 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, Human Rights Watch, the International Federation of Gyecology and Obstetrics, the International Planned Parenthood Federation, and the United Nations.

Personal life
Wydrzyńska was initially a chemist.

As of 2020, she was living in the Polish town of Przasnysz.