[NextGenderation]
-------- Original Message --------
At the invitation of more than 30 Spanish organizations,
the Women on Waves ship will arrive in the harbor of
Valencia on October 16 at 17.00 o?clock. The ship will
stay still October 21. Catholic groups are already trying
to stop the ship from entering.
PRESS INFORMATION
>From October 15-22 phone: +34 610065157
Before and after October 15-22: +31652052561 or
+31204650004
Or send an email to press@???
Spanish women in need of help can call (+34) 600050553
For the program during the ship?s visit please look at
http://www.womenonwaves.org/article-1706-en.html?lang=en
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WOMEN ON WAVES
Women on Waves works to guarantee the right to objective
sexual education, availability of contraceptives and legal
and safe abortion services. In countries where abortion is
illegal, we call attention to the dire situation of women
due to illegal and unsafe abortions. Every year 20 million
women have to resort to invasive illegal and unsafe
abortions as a result of which 68.000 women die
unnecessary.
Women with early unwanted pregnancies will be able to
receive the abortion pill legally and safely on board the
Women on Waves ship outside the territorial waters of
countries where abortion is illegal. Medical abortion is
very safe and effective. Counseling, treatment and
aftercare will be done according to High Dutch standards.
At the invitation of local women?s organizations, Women on
Waves sailed before to Ireland in 2001, Poland in 2003
and Portugal in 2004, where abortion was legalized in
2007.
ABORTION IN SPAIN
In Spain, abortion is only legal in 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.
There is a great lack of clarity about the Spanish
abortion law. This recently led to the prosecutions of
Spanish abortion doctors, the closure of abortion clinics
and the investigation of Spanish women who had an
abortions. Also, a Dutch woman from Boxtel, who had a late
abortion in Spain in 2007, is still under investigation in
the Netherlands.
The Spanish government has now appointed a committee to
recommend changes to the abortion law.
By inviting of the Women on Waves ship, the Spanish
organizations want to urge the Spanish government to:
- Remove abortion from the penal code. Abortion is a
regular medical procedure.
- Stop the criminalisation of women and doctors.
- Full financial reimbursement for abortion care as is
also normal for other medical procedures.
ABORTION IN EUROPE
The illegality of abortion in countries like Ireland,
Malta and Poland, and the differences in gestational
limits in which an abortion is legally allowed in the
different countries, lead to abortion tourism within
Europe and inequality in access to this much needed health
care service.
Several European agencies have recommended the
legalisation of abortion in all of Europe. In April 2008,
the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE)
called on the organisation?s member states to guarantee
women?s? ?right to access to a safe and legal abortion?
and to lift conditions which restricted access to safe
abortion.
In June 2002 the European Parliament adapted the ?Lancker
report? which advised to make abortion legal safe and
accessible en countries were called upon not to prosecute
women who had illegal abortions.
Women on Waves thus acts within the international
consensus concerning good sexual education, accessibility
of contraceptives and safe legal abortion services
