Women needing help in Argentina:

(011) 156 664 7070

Press information:

0054 911 57 37 9584
or masinformacion.menosriesgos@yahoo.com.ar

In Argentina abortion is illegal in most cases. There are about 500,000 abortions per year, most of them clandestine. About 68,000 women enter the public hospitals each year with post-abortion complications, and annually around 100 of these women die.
The goal of the hotline, “Abortion: more information, less risks” is to democratize access to information on the correct way to have a safe abortion using misoprostol.

The use of medicines to carry out safe abortions exists for more than twenty years as an established practice and is recommended by the World Health Organization and other agencies for its efficacy and low risk of death and complications when used correctly. Abortion using the medicine misoprostol is recommended by the World Health Organization as safe until the 12th week of pregnancy. There is no need for hospitalization; it involves little risk, with minimum subsequent medical care, equal to that following a miscarriage.

Click here to read the information about how to do a safe abortion with pills.

Press inquiries: +0056 984668855

Women on Waves has visited Spain from October 16 till 21 at the invitation of 33 Spanish organisations (please click here for list) concerned with a better abortion law.

If you need help with abortion in Spain now, click here

Women on Waves has visited Spain from October 16 till 21 at the invitation of 33 Spanish organisations concerned with a better abortion law. In Spain, abortion is only legal when case the pregnancy poses a threat to the physical or mental health of the woman, or in case of rape or fetal malformations. Every year approximately 100.000 abortions take place in Spain, once a psychiatrist has determined that the woman's mental health is endangered.
The major of Valencia, Rita Barberá, denounced the ship’s visit as a provocation.
More than 500 people attended the manifestation to celebrate the arrival of the ship even though police imposed a last minute ban on the artistic and musical parts of the manifestation. The Dutch parliamentarian Chantal Gill’ard of the Socialist party and the Spanish actrices Isabel Requena Pallares and Pilar Bardem addressed the crowds.
Outside the harbor some anti abortion rights groups protested loudly but they failed to fulfill their promise to prevent the ship from entering the harbour.
The boat was able to sail out to international waters with several women. Outside the spanish territorial waters the women on board could get a safe, medical abortion. It showed that many women are falling through the cracks of the system currently in place, For many women the private clinics are too expensive, other women are too young and cannot get parental consent, are immigrants, and/or live far from clinics and cannot travel.
The campaign was covered by media around the world.

The Coordinadora Juvenil por la Equidad de Género (Youth Committee for Gender Equity, ‘CPJ’) invited Women on Waves to come to Ecuador to support them in their stuggle to legalize abortion. Moreover we want to inform women of the possibility to do a safe abortion themselves with medicines, Cytotec, that are available in Ecuador.

For help in Ecuador: (593) 099004545

The information about medical abortion that we provide is based on research done by the World Health Organization. (published in the Lancet. 2007 Jun 9;369(9577):1938-46.)
Click here to read an abstract of the article in the Lancet.
For instructions "How to do a safe abortion" please click here.

Help women get access to the life saving information how they can safely do an abortion themselves. Print this sticker and paste it everywhere; in public bathrooms, cafe's restaurants, busses, trains, waitingrooms, dressingrooms, everywhere.

The Women on Waves ship Borndiep stayed in international waters, 12 miles from Figueira da Foz a small holliday town in Portugal, from August 28 till September 9, 2004. The ship was being blocked to enter Portuguese national waters by two Portuguese war ships.

In October 2007, Rebecca Gomperts was invited by Emmy Bezzina of the Alpha Liberal Democratic Party to come to Malta to give a lecture.

The lecture in Malta resulted in frontpage news and more than 25 newspaper articles and editorials for a month and days of television coverage. Anti abortion groups prayed in front of the Hotel where Rebecca Gomperts was staying.

However for the first time also some serious voices supporting abortion rights could be heard:

Raphael Vassallo wrote in Malta Today on October 14, 2007: All things told, Rebecca Gomperts might not have won over many hearts and minds in this country. But her visit has nonetheless served a very useful purpose……It has thrown into sharp focus our intense unfamiliarity with the European Union, which we evidently thought was just about roads and structural funds….. And it has once again established that at the end of the day, “democracy” is nothing but a nine-letter word beginning with a “D”.

Daphne Caruana Galizia wrote in the Malta independent on Sunday, October 21, 2007 “In reality, thousands of Maltese women have had abortions over the years because they have superb access to abortion clinics, better access than women living in many other parts of Europe. The nearest clinics are a short, cheap flight or catamaran ride away, precisely the sort of distance that women living in large countries must travel to the nearest city if they live in rural areas. Rebecca Gomperts wondered aloud at her public meeting why Maltese women are not campaigning for abortion. …..The truth is that Maltese women have things sorted smoothly, as Maltese women tend to do: if they want an abortion they can easily have one up the road in Catania, but at the same time they are able to salve their consciences by fighting against abortion in Malta. This is an extremely convenient situation: a ban on abortion within our borders, giving us brownie points with God, but none of the problems associated with a ban on abortion, as women can still have all the abortions they want to. If the nearest abortion clinic were a Lm700 fligh...

Om stopzetting van de strafvervolging van een 24-jarige vrouw uit Boxtel die 14 november werd gearresteerd vanwege een vermeende illegale abortus Klik hier om de brief te ondertekenen

On December 8, 2004, Rebecca Gomperts visited Argentina on the invitation of Noemi Oliveto of the party Selfdetermination & Freedom.

The visit sparked a stir amid city lawmakers after a row in the hall of the Cultural center of San Martin in Buenos Aires, where she was speaking at a conference on December 10. Anti-abortion extremists tried to disturb the conference and were pushing and beating pro-choice activists. After a while the police had to intervene. Because of the clash, the director of the Cultural Center decided to cancel the rest of conference planned for the next day. But it should not be possible that a small group of anti-abortion rights protesters were able to prevent the human right to free expression and undermine a democratic debate about the consequences of illegal abortion in Argentina. Fortunately, an alternative accomodation was found and the conference could continue without further disturbances.
In Argentine, abortion is forbidden and punishable by prison, except when the pregnancy is caused by a rape of a woman with mental illness or when the mother's life is in risk and it cannot be resolved in other ways. In these two cases, the judge first has to give permission for the abortion. However, the extreme delays caused by the court system makes abortion even in these rare cases impossible, because the pregnancy is too advanced by the time the judge makes his decision.

Each year, approximately 400,000 abortions are done in illegal and unsafe circumstances in Argentina. In 2000 some 79,000 hospital admissions due to complications caused by abortions practiced in unsanitary conditions were registered. Of these, around 16,000 women suffer serious permanent physical damage. Each day at least 2 women die unnecessary because of improperly performed abortions.

As everywhere it is women without financial means who suffer from the injustice done by the restrictive abortion laws. Women with money can afford to pay for a doctor who is willing to perform safe abortions for at least 500 USD.
In Argentina more then 40% of the population lives under the...

The essence of the-safety-pin campagne is to pull the themes abortion and unwanted pregnancy out of the closet and onto the public agenda. This progress towards an active international debate has an international symbol: the safety pin. Different media explore the themes and each offer simple options that could support the progress: from wearing a safety pin in one's personal surroundings as a personal signature on a petition to actively producing and distributing flyers. The mix of information as well as the significance of the information and need of support is varied in the media displayed here (website www.the-safety-pin.org, flyers, fashion movement).