Of Course There is Do-It-Yourself Abortion in New Brunswick

Well, who didn't see this coming?

Because abortions are nearly impossible to access in New Brunswick, people in need of the procedure have begun terminating their pregnancies themselves.

Whenever and wherever women have found it impossible to continue a pregnancy and to find competent help to end it, they have resorted to whatever is handy and has the slightest chance of working. And, it is to be hoped, not kill or maim them.

Right now, for example:

A woman in Morocco looking for help is considering drinking bleach to end her pregnancy. In Poland, a rape victim says she’s thinking about hitting her stomach with a stick to induce a miscarriage. Another woman desperately emails, “I am not a monster, I just cannot have the baby.”

These are the distressed messages that Women on Waves receive every day from women who live in countries where abortion is illegal. The organisation, an activist group famous for providing abortions on a ship in international waters, has recently been chronicled in the award-winning film, Vessel. The movie follows the work of Dutch doctor Rebecca Gomperts and her crew as they work around various countries’ abortion laws – and sometimes just flout them – to help women end their pregnancies.

While watching the film, which has its New York premiere next month, it’s hard not think about the current hostile climate for reproductive rights here in the US and wonder: How long until illegal abortion is the norm here, too?

If the Women on Waves ship visits North America, a period anchored in Northumberland Strait would be useful to the women of PEI and New Brunswick who are denied -- for purely political reasons -- access to a common medical procedure available to the rest of Canadian women.

In the meantime, here's some advice from the organization's website, Women on Web.

The best and safest way a woman can do an abortion herself until the 12th week of pregnancy is with the use of two medicines called Mifepristone (also known as the abortion pill, RU 486, Mifegyn, Mifeprex), and Misoprostol (also known as Cytotec, Arthrotec, Oxaprost, Cyprostol, Mibetec, Prostokos or Misotrol). If you live in a country where there is no access to safe abortion services and you would like to obtain a medical abortion with Mifepristone and Misoprostol, please go to Women on Web (www.womenonweb.org).

While women may be just as desperate as ever, the (semi-) good news is that DIY abortion is safer.

Although abortion is still illegal in many countries around the world, "do-it-yourself" (DIY) medical abortion means that it has become much safer compared to traditional methods such as inserting foreign objects in the uterus or ingesting poisons. However, there are still dangers when women buy dubious medication on the black market and take it without any instructions or medical supervision -- hence, the urgent need for groups like [new international foundation called Women Help Women] WHW, as well as Women on Web. The latter group courageously piloted the online provision of medical abortion in 2006, proving the viability and safety of this model.

And speaking of politics, the newly elected Liberal Premier of New Brunswick is already walking back one of his major promises. He seems to be changing his tune on fracking.

Gee, I wonder how the fetus fetishists of the province will respond to that news, given recent research showing that fracking increases the risk of fetuses developing congenital heart problems?

Reproductive Justice New Brunswick is keeping track of Gallant's shilly-shallying on his abortion review promise with its Days of Inaction Timer.

New Brunswick women who can afford it and have a passport will continue to contribute to the spike in abortions provided in Maine. But women who can't afford it will resort to other means, necessarily less safe than medical abortion.

Any less-than-ideal consequences of that will be on you, Premier Gallant.

Misopolis

Diesel for Women.

Under that photo, there's more copy:

Take misprostol - the pregnancy ends. Wake up and believe whatever you want to believe.

Pretty shocking, eh? (Go look at the other photos. I'll wait.)

So, is it a teaser?

We have a stupid dream.
What if we gave female factory worker the same rights as successful people?
A factory where they decide over their own bodies.
Whey they can have happy accidents without consequences.
A factory for only the brave.

Looks like it. Here's copy from another page:

Misopolis is coming soon.
This was just foreplay.
Come again for the climax.

There's a Facebook page, too.

And of course, there's a press release.

Diesel is proud to announce a new milestone in its ongoing campaign for successful living. To make a free lifestyle possible for young women in emerging markets, it will help them conquer a key life challenge: the right to safe abortion. Welcome to Misopolis, a brave new world for female factory workers.

What would it be like to give the female factory workers the same lives as successful people? Give them rights, fair wages and proper working conditions? Pregnancy leave? The right to safe abortions? A factory for only the brave?

After launching Diesel Island, Land of the Stupid and Home of the Brave, Diesel now creates Misopolis, a factory where brave female workers can have happy accidents without consequences. Misopolis will be the least fucked-up fashion factory in the world. But this is not just another factory – it is a destination that finally grants them real autonomy.

Blogger Dollymix has this to say:

If it's genuine, its possibly the most ill-advised piece of advertising I've ever seen.

We can see what's being attempted here: it's a sort of 'reaction piece' to the increasingly powerful pro-abstinence movement that's gaining ground in the States: a tongue-in-cheek rejection of it intended to resonate with liberal-leaning women.

The ads are clearly designed to court controversy and 'go viral' and you might well argue that this article is itself just rising to the bait - but I honestly don't think that Diesel will get the type of notoriety they wanted from trivialising such a sensitive topic.

Anything tingling yet?

Should be by now.

Fashion industry violate women's rights
A new initiative by fashion brand Diesel to improve working conditions and to provide free abortion pills to its female factory workers could have been an appropriate gesture by Diesel. Diesel is one of the fashion brands that uses production factories that refuse to pay a living wage to their workers, violates their human rights and forces them to work in dangerous and unhealthy conditions.

Misopolis (www.dieselforwomen.com) claimed to provide free abortion pills to its female workers in order to set them free and to create a fun factory.

This is, of course, a hoax, aimed at the garment industry to expose the violation of workers rights.

The hoax was devised by Women on Waves and Women on Web, both non-profit organizations concerned with women’s human rights and specifically with access to safe medical abortion. The organizations worked with the Yes Lab, which is a project of The Yes Men to help activist groups carry out media-savvy creative actions on their own.

In response to the hoax, Diesel send a letter threatening to take legal action, which was followed by a letter of the React group which is an organization in fighting counterfeit trade. (see the letters under press on the dieselforwomen.com website)

Women on Waves then denies any infringements and goes on to state the facts of the global garment industry.

Approximately 30 million people are making clothes and textiles across the globe. Between 75% and 90% of workers in garment industry are women. Fashion companies hire subcontractors that employ female workers in a highly exploitative context. The women are forced to work in hazardous conditions that pose a threat to their physical health and violate workers’ rights, fail to pay living wages, with long work hours and no maternity leave. Female garment workers generally are young (average age 19), unmarried, with little education or training, no prior work experience, of rural origin and from poor families. The female garment workers run a high risk of sexual harassment and rape. Often young and from extreme poverty, the women do not have resources to protect themselves in the event that they are abused. They cannot speak out for their rights without risk of losing their job. Workers are not provided with a written contract and trade unions are forbidden.

In May 2011 SOMO and the India Committee of the Netherlands released a report 'Captured by Cotton'. It proved that Diesel buys from suppliers that use the 'sumangali scheme’. Girls are being coerced to work in certain spinning mills and factories, with the promise of getting a big lump sum at the end of a 3 year period. This lump sum is actually part of their wage, which is below the legal minimum.

Most of the female workers in the garment industry live in countries where abortion is illegal, such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Mongolia, Madagascar, Myanmar, Thailand, the Philippines, Morocco, Brazil, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Jordan.

Approximately 21.6 million women globally still have an unsafe abortion each year, resulting in an estimated 47 000 deaths, largely among the most vulnerable women such as poor, unmarried and, especially, young women. In addition to the women who die every year due to unsafe abortion, an estimated eight million women annually experience complications that require medical treatment.

Medical abortion is a very safe method to end a pregnancy. It can be done with the medicines Mifepristone and /or Misoprostol. Misoprostol is a medicine also available in countries where abortion is illegal. Both mifepristone and Misoprostol are on the list of essential medicines of the World Health Organization (WHO).

To support this campaign and women in need of safe abortions, please donate to Women on Web, and share by Facebook

For more information
Women on Waves

info @ womenonwaves.org

I love Women on Waves. A gutsy gang. And a great campaign.


h/t IAmDrTiller