'Abortion ship' sails into Christian storm
Vessel that made waves by offering termination services in pro-life countries may be sunk by new Dutch law
Even the law of the land has never been able to stop Rebecca Gomperts.
The Dutch doctor has been a fervent pro-choice campaigner for more than 10 years, and in order to extend those rights to women who would otherwise be denied them, she hit on an ingenious plan: anchor a ship outside the territorial waters of "pro-life" countries, and distribute abortion pills to women who wanted them from there.
Since only Dutch law would apply to a Dutch ship in international waters, her opponents could do nothing to stop her. The plan seemed watertight. But now her work could be over. A draconian change in the Dutch law looks set to force the "abortion boat" back to port.
Rebecca Gomperts has started a court action to challenge the new law, which she says represents "a growing tendency towards restriction and intolerance" in Dutch politics.
Dr Gomperts, 43, has become both a global heroine and a global figure of hate since she announced in 1999 that she would use Dutch law and the international law of the sea to provide "floating abortions" to women in the Third World but also in anti-abortion European countries, such as Portugal, Malta and Ireland.
Although her original intention was to offer off-shore surgical abortions, her ship has, in fact, supplied only "abortion pills" to be used in the very early stages of pregnancy.
Previously, Dutch women could obtain abortion pills from their doctor and bring on a miscarriage at home in the first two weeks of pregnancy. This is also legally possible in France and several other EU countries. But under a law passed by the Dutch coalition government in May, the prescription and use of abortion pills has been limited to approved clinics.
"The change in the Dutch law means that women in other countries would no longer be protected and could be prosecuted if they came to our ship," Dr Gomperts said yesterday. "We do not want to take that risk. We have suspended the voyages that we planned this year off the coasts of Nicaragua, Chile, Brazil and Argentina."
Dr Gomperts insists however that the Women on Waves campaign is not over, despite the setback. "We have started a legal challenge to the new Dutch law. I am confident that we can have it overturned as an unfair restriction on the liberty of women. If so, we will resume our voyages."
For many years the Netherlands was the paragon of a liberal and permissive society, a model to some and a dire warning to others. But recent years have seen a shift in the political consensus towards a more restrictive approach. This has partly been driven by the rise in the crime rate and increasing drugs problems but there has also been a complex shift in the once stable pattern of Dutch politics.
Dr Gomperts says that she believes that the new abortion law was driven by party political or coalition pressures, rather than by a genuine change in the Dutch consensus. For the past three years the Dutch government has been a hybrid coalition of large centre-right and centre-left parties and a small Christian party, the Christen Unie or Christian Union. "There is a growing tendency towards restriction and intolerance since the Christian party came into government," Dr Gomperts said.
Asked if she thought that pressure from other countries to stop the activities of Women on Waves may have influenced the new law, she said: "No. I don't think it's that. I think this was all about internal Dutch politics."
As a further sign of a shift in Dutch government attitudes, the country's health inspectorate this week urged the state prosecution service to take action against Women on Waves for distributing abortion pills off the coast of Spain. Dr Gomperts' "abortion ship" visited the Spanish coast last October – before the new law was passed.
Women on Waves originally envisaged a whole fleet of abortion ships constantly cruising the world, offering surgical abortions by trained doctors. A movable abortion surgery was constructed out of a ship's container.
In fact, although the legend of a globe-trotting, clinical "abortion ship" persists, Women on Waves never carried out off-shore, surgical abortions. "For various practical reasons, but also because the abortion pill proved to be a far more useful tool, we have never performed a single clinical abortion," Dr Gomperts said.
Women on Waves, she said, was always partly a "symbolic struggle" – a way of drawing attention to the "calamitous" effect across the world of restrictive anti-abortion laws. "Every year, 20 million women have illegal abortions. Every year 70,000 women die as a result. That is a death rate of one in every 300 abortions. The death rate from the abortion pill, by contrast, is one in 500,000," she said. "Our real strategy has been to publicise the existence of the abortion pill and, where possible, to provide it directly."
Dr Gomperts used to be the ship's doctor of the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior II. It was during that vessel's visits to Latin America, she says, that she first became aware of the suffering caused by unwanted pregnancies and illegal abortions in the developing world.
However, she claims that her greatest success was to change the abortion law in an EU country. "The visits of our ship helped to start the campaign which led to a referendum decision to legalise abortion in Portugal in 2004," she said.
Dr Gomperts is also involved in another organisation, the Canadian-registered Women on Web, which makes abortion pills available by mail – sometimes for free – to women in countries where it is illegal. A doctor asks 25 questions over the internet to check for counter-indications. The pills are then sent in a plain envelope.
"For many women this is huge progress," Dr Gomperts said. "Women in countries where abortion is illegal live under tremendous stress. They go to unreliable websites where they are offered fake pills. There is also a [Women on Web] help desk where women can talk about their worries. There are no taboos online; there is no shame to talk."
Right to life: Where abortion is illegal
* Abortion is illegal, or severely restricted, in more than 120 countries, including many where sharia is enforced and some where Christian "pro-life" groups have seized the political initiative.
* European countries where abortion is illegal include Malta, where it has been banned since 1981, and Ireland, where a referendum in 1983 upheld "the right of the unborn to life".
* Nicaragua is among the countries where the abortion ban allows of no exceptions, even where a minor has become pregnant through rape or giving birth could result in the death of the mother.
* In parts of Nigeria under sharia, women who have aborted a pregnancy can be convicted of culpable homicide and sentenced to death.
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Comments
"For the past three years the Dutch government has been a hybrid coalition of large centre-right and centre-left parties and a small Christian party, the Christen Unie or Christian Union."
"Abortion is illegal, or severely restricted, in more than 120 countries, including many where sharia is enforced and some where Christian "pro-life" groups have seized the political initiative.
If the Christian parties are small in comparison to the other groups, how exactly have they "seized the political initiative"?
Is it just me or is there an intense bias on behalf of the writer to label this as a purely Christian drive and then to attach negative connotations to it?
Why is it that pro-choice is written as it is but pro-life is placed within parentheses? Towards the end of the article we see brief info regarding abortion being illegal with the majority having an obvious negative slant towards prohibiting abortion. Seems as if the article is trying to generalise and paint all people who are against abortion with the same brush.
If someone raped you or someone close to you, would you then think it's fine for or even encourage that person to go and murder a random toddler?
Does the end justify the means here?
Bottom line, this article registers a clear bias against Christians, in effect placing the blame on them. Yet it is not they who are committing the mass murder of innocents.
No female should ever be compelled to carry the fetus spawned by rape--as it is not a toddler (that is ages 2-4) but a collection of cells.
This view has long since been discredited.
Quoting Hitler is irrelevant to the point. A fetus is not just a "collection of cells" it is a human life. To claim that after the first trimester, the development of a child in the womb is via evolution goes against all the data. So perhaps it is you who needs to study the facts.
And aren't you a writer by trade? How have you managed to perform 4000 abortions?
You definition of a child is arbitrary. Who are you to declare when a human life is a human life worth saving?
If a woman's body is her own and she decides what happens to that body, she has no claim over the life of the body growing within her as it isn't her own. She is to care for it, to nurture it and support it, but this does not give her the right to abort it.
A fetus is not a baby. It is tissue that has potential for evolution (the same as any amoeba or myxogastrids that "breathes" using the oxygen from the water).
How many amoebas and myxogastrids have you seen develop in wombs and be born as human children?
A fetus is not a baby. See my "Abortion Handbook" (3d edition) to understand the evolution of the fetus and why it does not qualify to be a baby.
Having written several books on the subject is irrelevant. It's nothing but an appeal to authority to support your case. Whether doctors, writers or scholars, people can still make mistakes.
My point is that at whatever stage of development, once conception takes place, that is a human life. So to say there is nothing wrong with killing this life whilst simultaneously trying to tell others about morals and human decency is a contradiction. No woman has the right to say whether this human life deserves to live or die whether it's growing inside her body or not.
Before the 20th week, the fetus is a collection of tissues. It is not until the 24th week that a fetus reaches a POSSIBLE viability to live--but briefly--outside of the womb as an amoeba.
The fetus has no brain at conception or the initial period of development. Humans have brains, and without one the organism cannot feel pain, withdraw from any abortion instruments, etc.
There are no brain neurons before four weeks. The cerebral cortex (needed for thought, feelings, consciousness) is the last part developed. The cortex with sufficient axons, dendrites and synapses to process thought, feeling, etc. do not exist before the 28th week. It is neurologically impossible to crush a "babies" head.
Not until the 6th week LMP is the fetus more than pea sized. By the end of the 10th week the fetus is about 1 inch long. Physical characteristics (similar to birds) do not appear until the 2d month. By the 3d month the fetus is 3 inches long--and has no heartbeat. Heartbeats don't exist until the 20th week.
Study human embryology--not religious tracts by those without any medical or scientific knowledge.
Because religious groups - out of a misplaced belief in their own pious righteousness and aggrieved victimhood - often shout far louder, kick up a bigger stink, and enjoy far more political influence, than other groups who do not constantly try to tell other people how to live their lives, and what they can and can't do with their own bodies, and who don't always play the victim card to get their own way.
"Is it just me or is there an intense bias on behalf of the writer to label this as a purely Christian drive and then to attach negative connotations to it?"
Research has consistently shown a strong positive correlation between religiosity and pro-life/anti-abortion attitudes. Most atheists don't have a problem with abortion; most Christians do. So it is reasonable to presume, on the basis of probability, that it is Christians who are behind this attempt to restrict access to abortion, just as they are behind similar attempts elsewhere.
I hope the good doctor is successful in her legal challenge. Should she not be successful, I hope she is able to continue her efforts using some other means.
>>For many years the Netherlands was the paragon of a liberal and permissive society, a model to some and a dire warning to others. But recent years have seen a shift in the political consensus towards a more restrictive approach. This has partly been driven by the rise in the crime rate and increasing drugs problems but there has also been a complex shift in the once stable pattern of Dutch politics.
It is unfortunate that the Dutch have decided to end their experiment in liberality. I wonder if the stated rise in crime rate and increasing drugs problems is really caused by their permissiveness, though. If there is enough data, I hope someone with the proper qualifications will do a study on the pros and cons of the old Dutch model of society - a real scientific study rather than a a political or religious opinion piece.
Calvin (Cordless Kettle)