A California doctor has proposed a floating abortion clinic, moored in waters off the Gulf Coast, in an effort to serve patients from states where the practice is illegal and can open early next year.
Dr. Meg Autry, a gynecologist and obstetrician, recently founded PRROWESS, an acronym for “Defending State Regulatory Threats to Women’s Reproductive Rights,” with the idea launching a ship providing reproductive health care services in federal waters and outside the jurisdiction of state law, under Newsweek.
The clinic will serve patients in Gulf states with abortion bans like Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Alabama, for little or no charge.
Floating abortion clinics to serve patients in states where practice is currently prohibited
Those states, among others, have enforced such bans since the Supreme Court overturned them. Roe v. Wade Last month, however, Louisiana’s ban is currently blocked while a lawsuit challenging it is resolved.
Be creative to make sure #AbortionIsHealthcare accessible to all. Please send #USNSComfort down the Mississippi River as a floating federal abortion clinic. pic.twitter.com/gHmdL7xwe8
– Stephanie Schmid (@StephLSchmid) June 25, 2022
“People with money will be able to get the care they need and want whenever they want, wherever they want,” Autry told Newsweek..
Autry added that the proposed clinic would primarily serve “the poor” from “disadvantaged communities.
“This is for the poor, the people of color, the marginalized communities, which this event in the United States will affect the most… this is a closer and quicker option for them.”
The project will cost about $20 million to purchase and retrofit a vessel for medical use, which will keep the clinic running for about two years, the agency reports.
The $20 million ship, which will keep the clinic running for two years
It will take about a year for the clinic to open once the vessel is purchased, and there will be many licensed health care providers who will perform everything from STI testing and treatment to medical abortions. surgery.
Autry is optimistic about the idea and said she hopes it will be up and running by the end of 2023.
Although she didn’t put numbers on the sponsorship, Autry did say that the response from donors has been “awesome” so far.
“We had the initial seed money that allowed us to get a lot of consultants to work out the details of the plan,” she said. “And then when we went public, we got an incredible response from small donors. And we are negotiating with very large sponsors.”
The Doctor Says She “Witnessed the Erosion of Reproductive Rights” Her Entire Career
Autry added that her idea for a floating abortion clinic predated the Supreme Court’s decision, initially planning to deploy it along the Mississippi River, while insisting she had proven saw the “erosion of reproductive rights” throughout his entire career.
“My whole career, it’s been a constant erosion of a patient’s reproductive rights,” she said. “And so I’m always thinking, what do we have to do to maintain access to this important health care service?”
This is what Alabama Governor Kay Ivey’s office had to say about a California doctor proposing a floating abortion clinic in the Gulf of Mexico to bypass the Southern abortion ban: “We need offshore drilling, no have to have an abortion at sea.”
Looking for more information: https://t.co/RDWcgKrMbN pic.twitter.com/VxNR2je3AJ
– # WVTM13 (@WVTM13) July 12, 2022
The concept is hardly new, however, as Rebecca Gomperts, a Dutch physician, founded “Women on Waves” in 1999, providing fertility services along the waters of the nations. countries have restrictive abortion laws.
Legal experts say patient could be at risk of arrest on return to mainland
And while Autry’s legal team believes licensed healthcare providers can offer abortions in federal waters, she’s expecting states to challenge that. .
And the risks won’t stop once the procedure is over, as patients can easily get into legal trouble when they return to the mainland, experts say.
Rachel Rebouché, a law professor at Temple University, told Newsweek: “As soon as you go back to state property, states can adjust. “So they can find a way to penalize your behavior when you come back to state and that’s dangerous for the providers, because they have a lot of time.
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey responded to this opinion by saying that “we need offshore drilling, not offshore abortion, WVTM 13 reports.
