Twitter censors online abortion service
Calling upon all Twitter users to send a complaint; tweet the hashtag #FreeWomenonWeb.
Twitter has disabled the link to the Women on Web website and made it impossible to tweet a link to the website.
Women on Web was founded by Women on Waves in 2005, to respond to the urgent request for help for an abortion of women in countries where this healthcare service is not available.
Women on Waves is a charitable organisation focussing on women’s health and human rights. Its mission is to protect maternal health by preventing unsafe abortions.
The work of Women on Web has featured in the New York Times Magazine (NYTM) and in a documentary Vessel made by Diana Whitten and available through iTunes.
Founder Rebecca Gomperts is a Dutch general-practice physician and activist who, when working as a ship’s doctor on a Greenpeace vessel, landed in Mexico, and met a girl who was raising her younger siblings because her mother had died during a botched illegal abortion.
When the ship sailed on to Costa Rica and Panama, Gomperts met more women who told her about hardships they suffered because they didn’t have access to safe abortions.
“It was not part of my medical training to talk about illegal abortion and the public-health impact it has,” Gomperts told NYM. “In those intense discussions with women, it really hit me.”
On returning to the Netherlands, Gomperts worked out how to help women like those she had met.
She did some legal and medical research and concluded that in a Dutch-registered ship governed by Dutch law, she could sail into the harbour of a country where abortion is illegal, take women on board, sail with them into international waters, give them the pills at sea and send them home to miscarry – and began Women on Waves.
In 2005 Women on Web, was set up. It is a telemedical service that supports women in countries where there is no access to safe abortion to obtain a medical abortion.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), each year 42 million women have an abortion and half of these, 20 million, are illegal and unsafe.
An abortion with pills is very safe and effective to do at home till 12 weeks of pregnancy. It is very similar to a natural miscarriage.
Millions of women have done abortions at home in the United States and Europe and it is standard practice there. The medicines used are on the list of ‘essential medicines’ issued by the WHO.
By removing the possibility to link to or tweet the website of Women on Web, Twitter has severely violated Article 19 of the Universal declaration of Human Rights, the right to freedom of information, as well as Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights, the freedom of expression.
WoW has filed a complaint, but there has been no response from Twitter.
Women on Waves and Women on Web are calling upon all Twitter users to send a complaint and tweet the hashtag #FreeWomenonWeb.
Thank you.
I must admit I cannot comprehend why such a thing is banned while Twitter allows such vile harassment and threats to continue. There is no indication that what WoW is doing is illegal, so the only conclusion that we can draw is that Twitter would prefer that its followers be harassed than access information about legal safe abortion.