Women’s rights activist Dr. Rebecca Gomperts traveled by boat to provide legal abortions in international waters — and now the world can learn more about her efforts, thanks to the new documentary Vessel. Both Gomperts and documentarian Diana Whitten talk to BuzzFeed News about their experiences.
Dr. Rebecca Gomperts
Vessel
Though abortion is largely illegal in many parts of the world, Rebecca Gomperts, M.D., a doctor and women's rights activist in the Netherlands, found a way around restrictive anti-abortion laws: by sailing a mobile abortion clinic.
Gomperts' project, Women on Waves, launched in 2000 and has provided legal abortions in international waters in areas where abortion is illegal, giving women information on how to safely induce abortion using World Health Organization-sanctioned protocols with pills. Her efforts were documented by first-time director Diana Whitten in Vessel, a new movie that follows Gomperts and her controversial global movement — including Women on Web, the online incarnation of Women on Waves — from its inception through today.
BuzzFeed News spoke with Whitten (who also co-produced the documentary) and Gomperts about Women on Waves, the challenges and setbacks they faced, and the grassroots campaign efforts documented in Vessel, which will get a limited release starting Jan. 9.
Women on Waves activists spread information about the organization.
Vessel
How long did it take to bring Women on Waves from an idea into a fully executed mission — securing the ship, recruiting others to help, etc.?
Rebecca Gomperts: The first time that the idea came into existence was in 1997, when first sailing with Greenpeace. [Ed.: Gomperts sailed with the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior as its doctor and as an environmental activist.] There was just the idea. From that moment, I started talking with a lot of people — I even went to sailing school to understand more about ships. And I met with women's organizations, I spoke with the abortion rights community in the Netherlands, and it was clear that we needed to have at least a proper legal investigation, which was not that easy because it cost money. The campaign was launched in 2001. So about three and a half years.
What was the ship's first stop in Ireland in 2001 like?
RG: Everybody was just very excited and very anxious. We had no idea what was going to happen, so it was like a roller coaster. The preparation for this first campaign, it was within half a year: In December, I knew I had the funds, and then we planned the campaign for June. It was a lot of work. And I guess it's a good thing not to know what's going to happen. It was overwhelming for everybody.
What would you say has been most challenging part of this mission?
RG: It's hard to say. The challenges come one by one, so it's about overcoming them one by one or going around them one by one. Each time it's something else that you never saw before, so each time it's something else that needs to be solved. The challenges are not comparable. I think the most important one was really to go from this moment when we'd been sailing but we hadn't been able to do what we said we were going to do — that was in Ireland [where the ship was stopped and unable to provide abortion services] — to go to Poland and to really provide the medical abortions to women. That was an enormous important step, because we couldn't fail twice. We would lose all credibility if we wouldn't have been able to pull it off then. So I think that was really important for us.
Abortion was legalized in Portugal in 2007, and the laws in Spain changed a few years later — do you think your work made a big impact on changing those laws?
RG: I think in Portugal it did. I think in Spain, no; I think the campaign helped to kind of put it back on the agenda, but I think this process was already ongoing. But in Portugal, it definitely made a difference. It would have happened probably eventually, but it could have taken another 10, 20, 30 years. And I think the campaign with the ship really was the catalyst. It was one of the main issues in the election.
The change in Portugal, I think it was the perfect storm — all these elements came together. And I think that the ship had been catalyzing that moment — there were some women's groups that were working on legalizing abortion, [but] they were not very strong yet. And with the coming of the ship there was another very young group called Doctors for Choice in Portugal. During the legalization of abortion campaign, they became the main spokespersons for abortion. It was the first time doctors were supporting abortion rights, and so it was the perfect storm that happened [along] with the ship. And that was amazing.
In Vessel, you go to Africa and you're part of a grassroots campaign to show women how to obtain the misoprostol pill, which is used to induce abortion. How effective has that been there?
RG: This group started their own pharmacy. I think what was important is that we were the first ones who were actually willing to really train the people, take it out of the medical professionals' [hands] and to put it back in the community ... If you want women to have safe abortions, you have to give them the tools themselves and take it away from the doctors. That said, when there is a complication, we need doctors. But that's only when there's a complication. Normally, the medical abortion is similar to miscarriage — and women have miscarriages without doctors, without hospitals, all the time. So it's a very natural process. If there's a complication or a problem, of course you need doctors. And I think that to be able to make that distinction, on Women on Waves, we were really important in getting other organizations to follow up on that.
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