Ode to Rebecca Gomperts | Founder of Women on Waves

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While living temporarily in Poland, I became unexpectedly - and unwanted - pregnant. Just imagine, in a country where abortion is not allowed. I could suddenly empathize with Polish pregnant women who needed abortions: the stress, the uncertainty, the frustration, the shame for some, I'm sure.

What could I do? Did I have to travel temporarily, without my family, back to the Netherlands and have a lonely abortion? Should I “just” cross the border to the Czech Republic where we lived nearby and ask for an abortion there, in a foreign country where I didn't even speak the language?

Then 'Women on Waves' came to mind, those heroic stories of tough women on a boat in international waters, helping unwanted pregnant women who cannot get an abortion in their own environment. I knew that Women on Waves now had an online presence, under the name Women on Web. What a relief! How wonderful that that exists. 

I got an online consultation with a doctor and the abortion pills were sent to me within a few days in a nondescript white box. My husband went into town with the kids for the day (“mommy doesn't feel so good”) and, according to the package insert, I took first one pill and then the other. The abortion succeeded, it felt like a very spicy period. Exciting, painful, not fun, but necessary and oh so welcome.

Rebecca Gomperts is the founder of Women on Waves. With her team she has helped not only me but tens of thousands, maybe more than a hundred thousand other women from all over the world who were in the throes of an unwanted pregnancy. To me, she is a hero.