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An Egyptian doctor, named Mahmoud Fathalla, said:
"Women are not dying because of illnesses we cannot treat.
Women are dying because society has yet to decide
that their lives are worth saving."
I'm going to talk to you about a subject
that many of you may find uncomfortable,
but a subject that certainly has affected someone you love,
whether you know it or not.
Approximately half of the 42 millio abortions that happen every year
happen in illegal settings.
These laws have absolutely no control
over whether or not a person's happen.
The only thing these laws can control is whether or not they happen safely.
And they don't happen safely.
Especially in the countries where that's illegal
which as you can see, most of the global south.
Once every 8 minutes, a woman dies
from complications due to unsafe abortion.
This is approximately a plane crash a day.
Consequentially there is and always has been an underground network
of providers, of mothers and sisters and healers and whispered information,
that have helped women access safe alternatives
to unsafe ways and unwanted pregnancies.
20 years ago, women discovered medical abortion for themselves.
The history said that happened here in Brazil
when women read the contraindications on a medicine called misoprostol.
And the contraindication says
do not take it if you are pregnant because it would cause miscarriage.
So they started to use the pills to induce miscarriage
for unwanted pregnancies.
Physically this is the same experience and the same health risk
as a normal miscarriage
which happens in approximately 15% to 20% of pregnancies anyway.
As the regimen evolves over time,
it became more consistent than traditional methods.
They don't need the assistance from the black market doctor.
And if taken sublingually, meaning under the tongue,
nobody could trace the miscarriage as due the pills.
So since then, the pill misoprostol has been researched
and sanctioned by the World Health Organization as an essential medicine.
Both were, the original indication of an anti-gastric medication,
which why it is on the shelves in the first place,
and for medical abortion and, as a turns out,
it's a miracle drug for curbing postpartum haemorrhage
which is the number one cause of maternal mortality.
So in a lot of the countries where abortion is still criminalized,
these drugs are available and they are available over the counter
for an affordable price and very often without a prescription necessary,
women just don't know to ask for them.
So, I'm a filmmaker
and I'm working on a documentary film entitled "Vessel"
and it's about an international organization called the "Women on Waves"
who has found a legal loophole from which they can use medical means
to help women know about these pills.
Women on Waves sails a ship around the world
to countries where abortion is illegal
and they work with local organizations to transport women 12 miles offshore
into international waters where they can give abortions at sea.
This works because in offshore waters
jurisdiction over a ship lies with the flagship country of the ship.
So, in the Netherlands abortion is legal,
that's a Dutch ship,
in international waters abortion is legal.
And the goal is to create a spectacle that the media reports.
So that people see pictures of the ship and...
you can see on the picture on the right,
that there's a hotline, a telephone number on the banner on the ship,
and that's is their hotline.
So, I'm going to show you a quick scene from Vessel working progress
that shows the founders of Women on Waves,
some of her crew, arriving in Valencia, Spain, which I shot last year.
"It's a Dutch pro-abortion ship group
that have an abortion clinic on board
Yes, this all part of the Women on Waves Foundation."
"The abortion ship is arriving."
This ship is unsustainable,
it can only help a few women at a time,
but the media covers it
and hundreds of women see the hotline and the newspapers and call it,
where they reach trained volunteers
who teach how to find these pills and how to safely take them
in the privacy of their own home,
without a need of a doctor, without persecution,
and what to do when there are cases of complications.
Now, if a woman calling doesn't have access to the pills,
because of whatever the reason,
they redirect to a sister organization called Women on Web,
which is an online organization
that works under its own set of legal loopholes
and hard production model
and will mail the pills to women wherever they are.
And, Women on Web receives thousands of increase every year
including hundreds from Brazil.
So, Vessel the film is in post-production right now
and it should be finished next year at some point
I hope you get a chance to see it.
As I was doing reviewing on footage,
I've been realizing that the film is more than just a story, it's also a tool.
Scenes that have been shot in Spanish, in Portuguese, in Urdu, in Swahili,
in a variety of languages demonstrates volunteers,
not medical professionals, learning and training others
in these very simple regimens in how to take my supuesto.
And we are packaging them in two to three segments
that can be shared by the Internet and via text messages
in gracious efforts to share this information with women.
This information is already online.
it's online on organizations, publications, in private rights publications
and also, for example, on Women on Web web page
This right here, in Portuguese, is the entire regimen,
and it is published on their website in a variety of different languages
and people are encouraged to visit this website
and print it out on sticker form and put it up on public places.
So, these technologies are like offshore waters,
areas of negotiable sovereignty.
They are not the long term solution,
but they are ways to theoretically generate the discussion
that could expose the taboo and perhaps lead to the long term solution,
because, regardless when you believe life begins, perhaps we can all agree
that a woman who's determined to end an unwanted pregnancy
could be you or your sister or you daughter.
It's yourself, indeed, indisputably alive.
And the expose in a little elevation
could help to keep it that way until low catches up with reality.
Thank you.