NGO Providing Abortions Aboard a Ship Denied Entry in Moroccan Harbor

Dutch NGO Women on Waves brings free abortions to countries where the legal system or unfortunate financial conditions ban women access to such a procedure.

According to the Inquisitr, the operators on the boat were barred entrance to the Moroccan port of Smir, on Thursday, October 4.

Moroccan harbor authorities sealed the area and claimed "military maneuvers" were in place, denying NGO reps access in the country.

Abortions are a “big women’s health problem,” gynecologist Gunilla Kleiverda, of Women on Waves, has stated. In poorly developed countries, abortions are performed in unsafe conditions, and are usually banned by local legislation.

According to statistics posted on the Women on Waves website, 13 percent of Morocco's pregnancy-related deaths are caused by infections contracted during said operations.

“[In Morocco] … approximately 600 to 800 women still have an abortion every day. While wealthy women can afford safe abortion access, women of low socio-economic-status must often resort to unsafe methods that can result in morbidity and death… access to safe abortion is fundamentally an issue of social justice. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), unsafe abortion methods cause 13 percent of pregnancy-related deaths,” the public service announcement on the site reads.

70,000 unsafe abortion-related deaths are registered worldwide every year, and that is just the number of reported deaths. It is impossible to estimate a more appropriate number, due to the fact that, in countries such as Morocco, relatives do not report similar causes of death.

“Nearly 70 000 women die every year due to unsafe abortions, one every 8 minutes. Between 2 - 7 million women survive but sustain long-term damages,” WoW state on their Facebook page.

Morocco is the first Muslim country that the Dutch NGO tries to perform abortions in. So far, Women on Waves has granted women access to the free procedure in Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Ecuador and Spain.

Starting in 2009, the organization has opened abortion hotlines in Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, Indonesia, Pakistan, Venezuela and Peru.

Via: NGO Providing Abortions Aboard a Ship Denied Entry in Moroccan Harbor