By Sophie Stein
On September 4th, the Women’s and Gender Studies in Europe cohort all made our way to Amsterdam Muiderpoort by train together and took the short walk to the headquarters of Women on Waves (WoW) for an engaging hour with Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, the founder of WoW, a renowned Dutch physician, and abortion activist. Women on Waves was founded 25 years ago to increase abortion access throughout Europe. Technically, Dutch legal code still says that abortion is a criminal offense, though there is a somewhat malleable exception that can be made in cases of emergency that may allow for abortion up until fetal viability at 24 weeks.
Explaining the specifics of Dutch abortion restrictions, Gomperts guided the highly engaged and quickly scribbling WGSE group through a conversation about the many forms WoW has taken over more than two decades of work in the global fight for abortion access. The organization began its work by providing abortions on boats that would take women and others in need of abortion access into international waters where they could safely and legally receive abortion care. However, WoW has moved away from these boat abortions in recent years. The organization is committed to helping communities around the world mobilize and grow local women’s and abortion rights movements. Early on, they ran campaigns in Ireland and Portugal and played a major role in amplifying and growing the abortion movements that ultimately were successful in achieving abortion legality in each of these countries. Gomperts emphasized throughout her conversation that one of the most important pieces of activism, in her view, is attention grabbing, creative modes of activism. Gomperts believes that boldness is critical to effective activism, and much of her work in empowering local abortion movements is about encouraging groups to maximize legal loopholes to advance women’s rights and to take the gutsy steps that have the largest impact, even if they might be intimidating to take on at first. Gomperts repeated throughout the conversation that much of her philosophy as an activist revolves around asking for forgiveness, rather than permission.
Today, Gomperts’s work centers on Aid Access, a related organization that focuses on providing access to the abortion medication pills in the United States, particularly in states where abortion is severely restricted. As someone who spent this past summer interning in the American abortion activism space, it was very interesting to hear Gomperts’s perspectives on the state of abortion rights and activism in the United States today. While much of the conversations I heard this summer focused on expanding access to surgical abortions in the United States as the preferred form, Gomperts clearly championed the abortion pills (mifepristone and misoprostol) as the most effective and viable path forward for the future of abortion access in the U.S., and worldwide. Gomperts centered the role of telemedicine in these endeavors, which makes accessing the abortion pill possible even in states with near total abortion bans. She herself was an early adopter of telemedical care for abortion services, having founded Women on Web in 2005, which was the world’s first telemedical abortion organization. Gomperts has also been an essential player in conducting and publishing medical research about medication abortion that has helped expand access and legality of abortion pills in the time since she began her work.
At the end of our visit, Gomperts spoke on what’s next for the state of abortion in the United States (and, to some extent, globally), as well as more reflections on her philosophy of activism. Gomperts said that her organizations are already hard at work preparing for the potential ban on mifepristone (one of the two pills necessary for medication abortion) that is likely to be heard by the Supreme Court in the coming years. She also emphasized her legal preparedness, explaining that abortion activist networks are strong and have helped to connect her to pro-bono legal assistance. Gomperts explained that she will always insist that her work is legal, and that in most cases she’s right. “Good activism is art,” she concluded, in an attempt to impart to our group that creativity, boldness, and pluck are the most important qualities for a social changemaker. At the very least, this student was convinced.
