No, this is not about whales.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/1...n_1939273.html
For those of you who've not heard of this before: Women on Waves is an organisition that occasionally sends out a ship under Dutch flag to countries where abortions are illegal. Women, residents of that particular country, who are involuntarily pregnant then board the ship. The ship leaves the port and travels outside national waters so that abortions (the early ones that don't require surgery) can be performed without technically violating any national law. Hence the Dutch nickname "abortion boat".
At least, that's their reputation. Early in their existence they didn't have the actual permits to dispense abortifacients. Publicly they were vague about it, but when asked they said that they did not actually perform abortions because they were not legally allowed to do so. Instead they would just sail to Ireland, Spain or whatever to troll the authorities. Since then I think they actually have gone through with providing abortions, but I could be wrong. In any case according to them the more important point is to inspire debate and convince these countries to relax their laws, since they could never hope to help more than a handful of women on any trip.
Morrocco is apparently the first islamic country they travelled to, previous destinations were all catholic countries. Predictably, the Moroccan government refused them access.
Not everyone over here is a fan of the organisation. I'd expeced that most of the detractors would be pro-life conservatives - relatively rare over here, but they exist. Surprisingly however I've seen a lot of comments saying that this organisation is "imperialist", imposing western cultural norms on other countries. Ridiculous statements, I think. I might write a post on why I think it's ridiculous if someone here agrees with them, otherwise it would be redundant.
Thoughts?
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