Rebecca Gomperts prepares to dock the ship in Valencia, Spain. Photos are courtesy of Vessel website

Rebecca Gomperts is a modern-day hero, similar to Margaret Sanger and Emma Goldman. In 2001, Gomperts, a physician, set sail with her team of Dutch pro-choice colleagues with the goal of bringing reproductive health services to women in countries where abortions are banned.

Diana Whitten, a documentary filmmaker, followed Gomperts on her journeys to provide abortions on the seas. The result of Whitten’s seven-year filming effort is the award-winning documentary Vessel, which was shown on April 26, 2015, at the White River Junction Independent Film Festival.

Before the screening of Vessel, Jane Pincus, of the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, provided a historical context by showing Abortion, her film about two women getting abortions in the 1960s before it was legal. Pincus believed her film would educate people about the need for legalizing abortion at that time.

After Vessel was shown, Lauren Banker, a representative from Planned Parenthood, and Pat Glowa, a doctor at the Concord Feminist Health Center, in Concord, NH, were available to answer questions. Whitten, though not able to be physically present, responded by Skype to audience inquiries. Whitten noted that abortion laws are now being liberalized in other countries in contrast to the tightening in the United States. She also explained that Gomperts would not get involved in US policies because, in her opinion, the United States is “too religious and violent.”

The Abortion Ship

Gomperts, who studied art and medicine in Amsterdam, was a resident physician on Greenpeace’s social justice ship in the 1990s. Through her work with Greenpeace, Gomperts met women in Mexico, Costa Rica, and Panama who were desperate for help to terminate unwanted pregnancies. Her time on board the Rainbow Warrior II made Gomperts aware of the worldwide need for abortion services, specifically pills to induce miscarriages, not surgery.

In 1999, Gomperts came up with the clever idea of skirting the laws of countries by sailing a boat, registered in the Netherlands and operating under Dutch laws, into the harbors of countries where abortion is illegal. Gomperts and colleagues called themselves Women on Waves . Gomperts’s plan was to sail into international waters after picking up women seeking abortions, give them pills to induce miscarriages, and then take them back to their countries to recover.

When Dutch conservatives heard about her plans and her lack of a license, they demanded that she get licensed before doing any procedures or she would be in violation of Dutch law. The vessel arrived in Dublin, amid all this controversy, with her supporters on shore unsure what to do. Gomperts felt she had to give up and return home, without having dispensed a single pill.

Undeterred, Gomperts started out again in 2003, this time planning to assist only women who were up to six and a half weeks pregnant. She set her sights on Poland, with 80,000 illegal abortions per year. But the Polish police taped up her supplies and forced her out of Poland’s harbor.  

The following year, she sailed on to Portugal and even more trouble. The Portuguese minister of defense thought Women on Waves was such a threat that two warships were sent to stop her small vessel from entering Portuguese waters. Women in need of her services could not get out to the ship.

However, Gomperts must have said to herself the old Susan B. Anthony rallying cry, “Failure is impossible.” She decided to take to different waves—the airwaves. She appeared on a Portuguese talk show and explained how women could give themselves an abortion: take misoprostol—a medication for stomach ulcers sold under the brand names Cytotec and Arthrotec.

When challenged by another guest on the show, Pedro Motasoares from a Christian right-wing party, she blasted him as unqualified to speak since: “You have never given birth, so you don’t know what it means to do that.” She explained that she had had an abortion many years ago and that she was again pregnant and chose to give birth this time. She stated, “And I’m very happy that I have the choice to continue my pregnancy how I want, and that I had the choice to end it when I needed it.”
The worldwide response to her television appearance brought e-mails from women asking about the pills, and Portugal itself eventually legalized abortion in 2007, sparked by Gomperts’s actions.

In 2008, Gomperts and her colleagues set sail for Spain. As they attempted to dock at Valencia, the Spanish national coast guard lassoed the helm of the vessel and tried to tow it away. Gomperts asked for a knife. Watching the film I was not sure if her intention was to attack someone—or what. She calmly leaned over the side and cut the ropes attaching the vessel to the powerboat. That was one momentary victory! But it was short lived, and they were forced, ultimately, to retreat.

My one criticism of the documentary is that I wish Whitten had interviewed Gomperts more. It seemed that actions spoke louder than words in the film: watching the vessel and the reactions were the meat of the story.

Gomperts Today

Almost 40 percent of the world’s women cannot obtain a legal abortion in their countries. That translates into over 20 million unsafe abortions performed each year. In 2004, Gomperts and her colleagues decided they could better serve the world’s women by leaving the ship and operating from land, using the power of the Internet. They set up an office in Amsterdam and established a website, Women on Web, which functions to this day. They field calls and arrange Internet communications to help women seeking abortions. Once a woman fills out the necessary paperwork, doctors review her case and write prescriptions for the pills and then the medications are sent from India to her. Unfortunately, the services Gomperts and her colleagues provide may soon become relevant for women here in the United States as more clinics close their doors.

A recent tactic of Women on Waves (the organization continues to operate and has its own website) is to send teams to African countries to train women and men on how to give abortions using medication. In Tanzania, one group, after receiving instructions from Gomperts and her team, even set up its own pharmacy. Thanks to Women on Waves, local providers in 23 countries can now provide safe abortions, all operating under the radar screen.

In August 2014, Emily Bazelon, writing for The New York Times Magazine, described the film Vessel and also reported on her trip to Amsterdam, where she interviewed Gomperts. Gomperts admitted to Bazelon that she is now struggling with managing the organization she started and has had to cut back on comprehensive counseling to needy women. Yet she keeps going with her philosophy that this is all about “self-determination” and she likes “upending the system.” She now has two children, ages 9 and 8, and lives with her sister in a communal house with other families.

Cyndy Bittinger, writer and historian, teaches Vermont history and women’s history at the Community College of Vermont. Her books include Grace Coolidge: Sudden Star and Vermont Women, Native Americans and African Americans: Out of the Shadows of History