‘Declare it to a doctor, and it’s over’: Ukrainian women face harsh reality of Poland’s abortion laws

Myroslava Marchenko was a gynaecologist in Kyiv before the war. She now advises Ukrainian women about their reproductive rights in Poland. Photograph: Anna Liminowicz/The Guardian

When the first Russian bombs fell on Ukraine, Myroslava Marchenko was a gynaecologist at a private clinic in Kyiv. The next day, one of her patients was due to have an abortion after prenatal tests showed a high chance of Down’s syndrome.

Instead, like millions across the country, Marchenko and her patient fled to safety, crossing the border into Poland where abortions due to foetal abnormalities – or “on eugenic grounds” in the language of the country’s constitutional tribunal – are illegal.