Polish Abortion Tourism

Poland's abortion policy is one of the strictest abortion policies in Europe. Yet, thousands of Polish women travel each year abroad to terminate unintended pregnancies. Although abortion tourism is not a new phenomenon, reliable data on the issue is rather scarce. Thus, the goal of this study was to provide more information on abortion tourism, especially in the Polish context. The objectives of this research were to describe Polish women using foreign abortion services, use of the services, selection criteria for the services and reasons for preferring abortion tourism over having a backstreet abortion in Poland. It is estimated that every fourth Polish woman has experienced an abortion, meaning that there are approximately 4,1-5,8 million Polish women who have terminated at least one pregnancy. Up to 200 000 Polish women are estimated to terminate pregnancies each year. Among these, 10-15% are estimated to seek abortion abroad. The study was conducted as a quantitative research. Twenty-three Polish women, who have sought abortion abroad, participated in the study. The participants completed a question-naire consisting of 13 questions. Eventually, correlation analysis was performed in order to measure the linear correlation between different variables. The results indicate that the respondents usually had a relatively high socioeconomic status. Based on this study, an average Polish woman, who had an empirical experience of terminating a pregnancy abroad, was in her early 30's, highly educated and professionally active. In addition, the results indicate that Polish abortion tourists usually traveled to the nearby member states of the European Union, with Germany being overwhelmingly the most popular destination. For the clear majority, terminating a pregnancy abroad was a one-time event. Moreover, the results indicate that the respondents were rather pressed for time and aware that abortion is a time-bound procedure. Namely, the accessibility of the service, understood as free appointments available in the near future, was estimated as the most important selection criterion for foreign abortion services. On the other hand, the respondents also valued the responsiveness of the personnel. Last but not least, the results indicate that the safety concerns related to having a back-street abortion in Poland was the most significant factor forcing Polish women to seek abortion abroad. In conclusion, this study is a good starting point for exploring Polish abortion tourism, alt-hough a lot of information is still to be found. For instance, if Polish abortion tourists usually have a high socioeconomic status, then this brings up the question as to what methods are used by those who cannot afford traveling abroad. Thus, conducting further research on Polish abortion tourism is strongly recommended