Dutch Abortion Ship Leaves Portugal After Failing to Get Women Aboard

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Sep 10, 2004   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Dutch Abortion Ship Leaves Portugal After Failing to Get Women Aboard Email this article
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
September 10, 2004

Lisbon, Portugal (LifeNews.com) — The Dutch abortion ship is setting sail for home after failing in its mission to get Portuguese women to violate their country’s pro-life law and receive dangerous abortion drugs aboard ship.

Rebecca Gomperts, the abortion practitioner who founded Women on Waves, the group sponsoring the converted tugboat, said the crew was tired and needed to rest after two weeks on the high seas.

It will take approximately a week to sail from waters outside Portugal to the ship’s home port of Amsterdam.

The Borndiep’s crew tried to sail for the Portuguese shore, but the Catholic country’s top officials called on a naval vessel to block the ship and prevent it from docking at a harbor in the northern part of the country.

A Portuguese court upheld the decision earlier this week.

Although the abortion ship failed to distribute any abortion drugs to Portuguese women, Gomperts appeared on a television talk show and instructed women on how to purchase an ulcer drug at pharmacies and misuse it to produce an abortion.

Searle, the company that manufactures the misoprostol ulcer drug, has written a nationwide letter to doctors in the United States, in conjunction with the Food and Drug Administration, saying the pills are not safe to be used in an abortion.

On their web site, Women on Waves encouraged women to lie about their medical condition, making it appear they needed the drug for stomach pain.

The pro-abortion group also admitted that using the drug as an abortion agent is dangerous, that it could cause women to require hospitalization for excessive bleeding, and that the makeshift abortion drug would fail at least 10 percent of the time.

Rev. Thomas Euteneuer, president of Human Life International, welcomes the departure of the Dutch abortion ship.

"HLI protested the Women on Waves abortion cruises to Ireland in 2001 and to Poland in 2003, but we are especially pleased our collaboration with the Maternidade e Vida pro-life group in Portugal and its director, Francisco Jose Coelho da Rocha, led the Portuguese government to refuse these abortion extremists entry into their waters," stated Father Euteneuer.

Euteneuer said Gomperts’ group may have fled the country after the Portuguese pro-life group asked lawmakers to prosecute her for promoting illegal abortions.

HLI and Maternidade e Vida worked together to mobilize pro-life advocates to place posters displaying an unborn child and the Portuguese words "Those who love do not kill" throughout the port of Figueira da Foz. The abortion boat attempted to dock there.