New documentary looks at Polish abortion rights movement

Director Karolina Domagalska discusses need for levity in depressing realities of country’s abortion restrictions

I recently watched a documentary called Abortion Dream Team, which detailed four Polish women attempting to protect and advance access in their country despite its attempts to punish those who do so. 

Karolina Domagalska, one of the directors, spoke to me in a Zoom meeting. She and her group have attempted to destigmatize abortion generally. For years, as has happened recently in America, there was an attempt to focus on the extreme scenarios on the abortion spectrum. 

“We would always hide behind extreme cases like incest or when the life of the mother, of the woman, is in danger and things like that,” Domagalska said. “And what we really need is abortion whenever we need it. That's it.” 

It fascinates me that they have moved in the opposite direction as American women in that regard. Now, the focus here is almost exclusively on getting abortions when it is medically necessary. That shows how much ground we’ve lost. 

Cineuropa, a film news website, ran a review of the film. Here’s what it said.

The documentary follows the four core members and founders of ADT: Justyna Wydrzyńska, who runs the helpline; Natalia Broniarczyk, the media contact and the public face of the organization; Karolina Więckiewicz, the legal activist; and Kinga Jelińska, who now runs an NGO that ships abortion pills to Poland from the Netherlands, where she is based. We see how each member of the group, particularly those in Poland, voluntarily place targets on their backs and face extreme harassment from pro-life protestors owing to their activism. The secondary subplot of the film involves Justyna being charged as an accessory to aiding in the act of abortion, as she directly mailed pills to a pregnant woman in an abusive relationship. Over the course of the film, she must navigate the added media attention while still remaining faithful to the cause she holds dear.

Most of the feature focuses on the members’ day-to-day work, which also reveals the impact of the organization: it claims to have sent around 50,000 abortion kits and 150,000 day-after pills to women in Poland. Using a primarily cinéma vérité style, the camera captures intimate moments in the homes of the ADT members and documents firsthand their work and discussions. The documentary hits hardest with accounts from even pro-life individuals who come to realize the organization’s value for Polish women when they, too, find themselves wanting an abortion in a sticky situation. With very specific examples and shocking moments that reveal the amount of verbal slander the members face (such as the use of the faces of ADT members on trucks connected with the word “murder”), Domagalaska brings the viewer face to face with what’s going on in Poland today.

After watching the film, I contacted Domagaska for a more in-depth view of what happened in Poland. I had previously interviewed another Polish abortion rights leader, Klementyna Suchanow, for my book. She had told me that the antiabortion movement in Poland was part of a larger international collective that was driven by American money. Suchanow singled out Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian right legal advocacy group, as one of the central organizations behind it. 

Many people don’t realize the precarious place that European countries are insofar as abortion rights. In England, women are facing life imprisonment for taking abortion medication when it’s illegal to do so. In Malta, they face life imprisonment as well. In Italy, they also have a ban and have graveyards for fetuses that died as part of the effort to stigmatize abortion. Germany wants to liberalize its abortion laws, too. 

Despite the depressing realities in Poland and elsewhere in Europe, Domagalska wanted to show abortion rights in a more uplifting light. 

“I didn't want to make another dark and depressive film about abortion because abortion is just part of our lives,” she said. “And it's not always strategy, strategy, strategy. Usually, what we feel after abortion is relief. And it can also be taken lightly. 

“Some may feel good about it. Some may feel bad about it, but it's just for us to be open and to not have any preconceptions about what it is and how we are supposed to feel.”