Netherlands: Law change has implications for abortion group

Recent changes to Dutch abortion law have caused international abortion provider Rebecca Gomperts to cancel upcoming campaigns for her renowned organisation Women On Waves, the Huffington Post reports. 

For a decade, the Dutch organisation Women on Waves has offered medical abortions in international waters to women from countries where abortion is illegal. Using ships registered in the Netherlands, they transport women offshore, where the laws of the country of registration apply onboard, and distribute the abortion pill at sea.

Until now, Dutch law did not interfere with a pregnancy under 6 weeks. The recent update of the Pregnancy Termination Act places the regulation of terminating an early pregnancy under the criminal code and states the abortion pill can only be administered in specialised clinics licensed for the procedure.

According to Labor Party MP Chantal Gill’ard, who supported the change to the law, the implications for Dutch women are minor because early abortion procedures are still legal and available. She described the new regulation as ‘a formalisation of the current practice’, posing ‘no change in the practical situation for women’.

However, because the law requires that only licensed clinics can prescribe the abortion pill for early pregnancies, Women on Waves is no longer legally able to offer abortion medication on their campaigns.

Between 2001 and 2004, Women on Waves sailed a portable medical clinic built in a shipping container which was equipped and licensed to provide surgical abortions. No surgeries were conducted in the clinic, largely due to Gomperts’ shift in focus from surgical abortion to the provision and promotion of medical abortion.

Eliminating the need for surgery and the cumbersome portable clinic meant that Women on Waves’ doctors could work with only the abortion pill, and on any registered Dutch vessel. In campaigns after 2004, they have conducted campaigns without the clinic. This has enabled them travel further distances, and travel plans were in the works for a campaign to several countries in South America.

‘The medication is revolutionary,’ Gomperts says. ‘It is affordable, accessible, and women can administer it themselves.’

Under the new law, Gomperts can no longer legally administer the pills without the onboard clinic. Sailing with the clinic to far destinations is financially and logistically unfeasible, and Gomperts has cancelled all upcoming ship campaigns.

She has also announced that she will rally other physicians, general practitioners, and lawyers to stage a procedure against the Dutch government. She claims that the process through which the law was changed is ‘undemocratic and unlawful’, as it has not gone through Parliament as the Dutch legal system requires.

This moment was a direct precursor to the establishment of Women on Web, an online distributor of the abortion pill, and to hotlines that publicize information about medical abortion. Hotlines currently exist in Ecuador, Argentina, and Chile, with more planned for the coming year.

Abortion Ship Forced To Cease Operations After Passage Of Dutch Pregnancy Law. By Diana Whitten and Anita Schillhorn van Veen. Huffington Post, 7 August 2009