Finnish PM’s staff deny claim she offered free abortions to women from Poland

An aide to Finland’s prime minister, Sanna Marin, has denied claims by a Polish opposition leader that she offered free abortions for women from Poland, after the issue was used against her ahead of upcoming elections. An assistant to the Polish politician has also admitted that there was no such agreement.

Earlier this month, Marin met in Helsinki with a delegation of politicians from The Left (Lewica), Poland’s second-largest opposition group. Afterwards, one of The Left’s leaders, Robert Biedroń, who had attended the meeting, tweeted that “we have an agreement on free abortion for Polish women in Finland”.

“Sanna Marin’s office wants to help Polish women access their basic right,” he continued. “[We] are starting to discuss details [and] in the new term of the Finnish government we will finalise the issue.”

Over the last week, Notes from Poland’s English translation of Biedroń’s announcement began to draw attention among opponents of Marin, as campaigning reaches a climax before the 2 April parliamentary elections at which she is seeking a second term as prime minister.

Among those to criticise Marin’s alleged promise of free abortions was Päivi Räsänen, chairwoman of the Christian Democrats and a former interior minister.

“The abortion promise is senseless and heartless – our health services are needed for Finns, not for destroying the lives of Polish children,” wrote Räsänen. “Another reason to vote for the [Christian Democrat’s] voice of reason and at the same time [vote] Marin out of her position.”

In response to such criticism, an unnamed member of Marin’s staff told leading Finnish daily Ilta-Sanomat that they had held “a courtesy meeting that lasted about 10 minutes” with the Polish delegation.

“The Polish delegation described the country’s human rights situation to the prime minister and expressed the hope that in the future cooperation to defend women’s rights in Europe could be intensified,” added the source. “No promises of any kind were made to the delegation at the meeting.”

The Finnish MEP that hosted the Polish delegation, Miapetra Kumpula-Natri, also told the newspaper that “it was made known that there are only weeks left before the end of the government’s term and nothing can be promised on behalf of the state…but that we want to continue communicating on the subject”.

Meanwhile, an assistant to Biedroń, Jakub Ratajczak, confirmed that nothing binding was agreed at the meeting and claimed that Polish media reports about it were a “misunderstanding”.

“No agreement was made. We only agreed that discussions on the issue will continue. Marin expressed his support for Polish women, but was unable to promise anything, especially on behalf of the government,” he told Ilta-Sanomat. “It was more about a gesture of solidarity.”

Poland’s abortion law, already one of Europe’s strictest, was further tightened in January 2021, when a near-total ban on abortion was introduced. That has resulted in a growing number of women from Poland going abroad to obtain terminations.

That same year, the Belgian government began offering funding to help pay for Polish women to travel abroad for abortions. The authorities in the Netherlands have also declared plans to do the same, though they have not yet been implemented.

In 2021, the Polish embassy in Prague requested that the Czech government intervene to prevent legislation that would make it easier for women from Poland to obtain abortions in the neighbouring country.

Main image credit: Stina Virkamäki/FinnishGovernment (under CC BY 2.0)

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.