Defending the Truth

Will they someday be needed to make life better for American women?

Abortion on the high seas | The Guardian | Guardian Unlimited
The abortion ship's doctor
Dutch doctor Rebecca Gomperts has caused huge controversy by providing abortions for women in countries where the procedure is illegal - by treating them on a ship anchored in international waters. Julie Ferry meets her
Wednesday November 14, 2007
The Guardian


Abortion rights campaigner Dr Rebecca Gomperts. Photograph: Linda Nylind

She is the founder of Women on Waves (WoW), a radical Dutch organisation that sails an "abortion ship" to countries where the procedure is illegal, before taking women out to the safety of international waters to provide terminations.


</IMG>

"So far we have sailed to Ireland, Poland and Portugal, all when abortion was illegal, with varying degrees of success, but we are looking to visit either South America or Africa next summer," she says. "Wherever we go there is a lot of press attention and opposition from anti-abortion groups but it is in developing countries that women really suffer because of unsafe and illegal abortions. That is why it is important for us to go there and raise awareness, however difficult it may be."
An article published in the Lancet medical journal earlier this year backs up her view that the burden of unsafe abortion is borne disproportionately by the poor, the disadvantaged and the young. There are an estimated 210m pregnancies worldwide each year, of which one in five ends in an abortion. An estimated 20m unsafe abortions are carried out each year, 97% of them in developing countries. According to the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), complications from unsafe abortions account for 70,000 deaths annually, as well as countless injuries. "It's such a waste of life," says Gomperts. "As a doctor, I look at the abortion issue from a health perspective and the fact is that an early abortion is safer than giving birth. That is not meant to promote abortion because if women want to have children it is a risk they are naturally willing to take. However, if they don't want them they should never be forced to take that risk."

"Abortion doctor" is an oxymoronic term.

At least.

You know, I was thinking...........I bet the good reverend Fred Phelps would not approve of this.

She'd be a good fuck though. If you got her pregnant, you wouldn't have to worry about heer agreeing to an abortion and furture child support. Look on the bright side pal!

Agreed, she's the single man's dream/lifesaver. But now that I'm older, with a son of my own, and more conservative, she's a baby killing beyotch.

Hell, I might start going to Church soon.

Very interesting article, OKgrannie! Thanks for posting it.

I hope we never see the day where women have to be shuttled out into international waters to be able to make their own reproductive choices. But part of me fears that could happen.

From the article:
This woman is indeed saving lives. Abortion should always be a woman's choice.

Probably wondering how many brothers and sisters ended up in the sewer.