197

Arte Útil archive nr:

197

Initiator:

Rebecca Gomperts

Location:

The Netherlands

Category:

politics, social

Users:

Rebecca Gomperts, Atelier van Leishout, Gunilla Kleiverda, Myra ter Meulen, Margreet Parlevliet, Kinga Jelinska, Susan Davies, Marlies Schellekens, Carrie Watters, Greet Habraken, Women from countries where abortion is illegal

Maintained by:

Private and philanthropic funding

Certification:

implemented

Duration:

1999-ongoing

Rebecca Gomperts
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Women on waves

Description:

Women On Waves, founded in 1999 in the Netherlands by Rebecca Gomperts, provides safe legal abortions in international waters on-board a Dutch ship. The ship travels with a specialized abortion doctor, gynecologist, and nurse who offer contraceptives, information, trainings, and safe and legal abortions. Women on Waves partners with local organizations to offer sexual health services and workshops. By operating outside territorial waters, 12 miles off shore, local laws are subverted and legal abortions are made accessible.

Goals:

To prevent unsafe abortions and empower women to exercise their human rights to physical and mental autonomy. To provide access and information for women to be able to perform their own medical abortions. To provide tools to resist repressive cultures and laws.

Beneficial Outcomes:

Training, information, contraceptives, workshops, safe and legal early medical abortion services with pills, and targeted media campaigns; The Women on Waves public interest campaign helped catalyze the legalization of abortion in Portugal in 2007.

Images: