Over the past 11 years, a Women on Waves ship has visited Ireland, Poland, Portugal and Spain, sparking protests in each country from pro-life groups. Rebecca Gomperts, founder of the non-profit orginasation, and her team are sailing to a Muslim country for the first time, to raise awareness about women’s health, and specifically the drug misoprostol.

Women on Waves is working with organisers from a Moroccan movement called MALI, or the Alternative Movement for Individual Freedoms, that has, in the past, been subjected to death threats from religious fundamentalists.

Women on Waves says that, according to figures published by the Moroccan government, between 600 and 800 abortions take place every day in the north African kingdom, where the procedure is illegal and taboo.

“The problem is that only about 200 cases are done properly, by women who have money,” Gomperts said, with the rest resorting to dangerous methods because they are unable to afford the expensive treatment.

The group does not administer huge amounts of abortions aboard the ship, and the missions seem to be more about raising awareness. One of the issues Gomperts want to raise awareness of is the drug misoprostol. It is typically given in combination with another drug, mifepristone during an abortion. Used in high doses, however, misoprostol can be very effective alone, mimicking the effects of a spontaneous miscarriage. And because it is also sold as an ulcer remedy, it’s relatively easy to obtain, often without a prescription.

Part of the point of sailing to Morocco, then, is to raise awareness about misoprostol in the Arabic-speaking world. “The local women’s movement, they didn’t know about misoprostol,” Gomperts says. “Nobody I talked with in Morocco in preparation for the campaign had any idea about the availability of misoprostol.”

Gomperts was trained in direct action at sea in the 1990’s, while serving as the doctor aboard Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior II. She told The New York Times in 2001, “In my trips with Greenpeace, I became aware of the enormous and invisible suffering of women due to illegal abortions.” She had the idea of creating a floating clinic that would travel around the world, serving women from countries where abortion is banned.

When asked if this was a rather perilous time to be visiting a Muslim country and offering abortions, with all the anger around the recent ridiculous and offensive anti-Islam film, and the publication of blasphemous cartoons in France, Gomperts said:

I understand that [the visit] is seen as a provocation by some religious groups. But this is about women’s health. It has nothing to do with religion.

She isn’t saying where the ship is and when it will arrive at Moroccan shores, but when it does it will stay for about a week. The ship will host small groups of women and supporters aboard at a time so as not to draw too much attention. As one writer put it, this is not so much about what happens while the boat is docked, but about the knowledge that is left behind.

[Source: IOL, Daily Beast]