- A woman in Morocco looking for help is considering drinking bleach to end her pregnancy. In Poland, a rape victim says she’s thinking about hitting her stomach with a stick to induce a miscarriage. Another woman desperately emails, “I am not a monster, I just cannot have the baby.”
These are the distressed messages that Women on Waves receive every day from women who live in countries where abortion is illegal. The organisation, an activist group famous for providing abortions on a ship in international waters, has recently been chronicled in the award-winning film, Vessel. The movie follows the work of Dutch doctor Rebecca Gomperts and her crew as they work around various countries’ abortion laws – and sometimes just flout them – to help women end their pregnancies.
As much as I disagree with Valenti on other issues, I can't argue with that. Once you take away the safe options, that's when the coat hangers come out.
I was in Memphis at the beginning of the year. While there I saw a group protesting an abortion clinic. Two miles down the same road I saw a homeless, pregnant woman pan-handling. I wanted to introduce the protesters to her and say, Okay... help.