Gomperts, Rebecca

Rebecca Gomperts is an abortion rights activist who has earned international attention with her projects Women on Waves and Women on Web. Her motivations, goals, strategies, and successes are outlined in this article.

Gomperts was born Suriname in 1966 and was raised in Vlissengen, the Netherlands, after her family moved there when she was 3 years old. She studied medicine and visual arts in Amsterdam and interned in surgery and radiology. While serving as the ship doctor aboard the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior II, Gomperts met many women in South America who suffered tremendously because of the lack of access to reproductive health services and safe, legal abortion. Their stories, along with those of health professionals, were her inspiration for founding Women on Waves (WoW) in 1999.

WoW, a nonprofit organization, purchased and outfitted a boat, registered with the Dutch government, with a mobile abortion clinic designed by Dutch sculptor Joep van Lieshout. The mobile clinic was intended for display purposes only. The abortions performed at sea were medical, as opposed to surgical, using abortion pills. The idea was to sail to countries where abortion was illegal, take pregnant women seeking abortions out to international waters-where the ship would be under Dutch law and the abortions therefore legal-and then “perform” the abortions before returning the women to shore. While in harbor, the workers aboard the ship would also distribute contraceptives and offer counseling, education, and workshops for health professionals. Between 2001 and 2008, WoW sailed to Ireland, Poland, Portugal, and Spain, invited by local women's organizations in those countries. The ship was grounded in 2009 because changes to Dutch law affected WoW's ability to provide medical abortions. Previously, any Dutch-licensed physician could prescribe abortion pills anywhere, but the legal changes meant that only doctors in approved clinics could do so. As a consequence, WoW was forced to cancel trips to Nicaragua, Chile, Brazil, and Argentina.

In the years that the ship operated, WoW experienced mixed success. On the first voyage to Ireland, WoW's was under intense international media scrutiny. While the ship was en route, conservative members [Page 633]of the Dutch government announced that Gomperts was not licensed to distribute the abortion pill and that she would face legal repercussions should she do so. Although Gomperts and her crew distributed contraceptives and the “morning after” pill, they could not help the more than 200 women who contacted them looking for the abortion pill. Organizers felt betrayed and bitterly disappointed, and WoW left feeling frustrated.

The 2003 trip to Poland was more successful. Before WoW's trip to the country, public opinion polls there showed that 44 percent supported the liberalization of abortion laws; that number rose to 56 percent after WoW's visit. Even greater results were seen following the ship's 2004 trip to Portugal. There, Gomperts's boat was blocked by two warships-a move that was viewed by citizens as an overreaction. The publicity raised by the government's response helped make abortion an issue in the 2005 federal election, which saw the defeat of the ruling party. In 2007, the country held a referendum on abortion that resulted in the president ratifying a law that allows women to obtain abortions up to the 10th week of pregnancy. In spite of the mixed successes with their voyages, what WoW consistently succeeded at was bringing the issue into both the national and international media.

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