A California doctor plans to launch a floating abortion clinic in the Gulf of Mexico to go around state laws banning abortion. I’ll admit, I didn’t see this one coming. It’s easy to imagine that trigger laws will be challenged by lawsuits for the foreseeable future. In this case, though, a floating abortion clinic in the Gulf of Mexico is thought to pass legal muster because it will be in federal waters, out of the scope of state laws.

The plan is currently in the fundraising stage. Dr. Meg Autry, a Bay Area OB-GYN who also works as a professor at UCSF was working on bringing her plan to fruition but since the Supreme Court ruling on Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health, her plans have accelerated. Her plan, Protecting Reproductive Rights of Women Endangered by State Statutes (PROWESS) “aims to be a floating health clinic dedicated to offering a full scope of reproductive health and wellness services, including contraception and surgical abortion.” I’m guessing women won’t be traveling to the Gulf Coast and getting on a ship for birth control, though. Let’s be honest, this is to provide abortions. Anything other than that is like when Planned Parenthood insists it doesn’t just do abortions, it also offers mammograms and other tests. We know abortion is their primary purpose to exist.

Dr. Autry assumes that women seeking abortions will fly to another state where abortion is legal if they live in a pro-life state. She says it is less expensive to board a boat than buying a plane ticket. She may be right but it seems to me that more women will just drive across a state line if they need to and that is more economical than a plane ticket. She notes that people living in southern parts of pro-life states like Texas and Louisiana are closer to the coast than to nearby states that have more access to abortion. Autry calls performing abortions her “life’s work.” That sounds ghoulish, right? Imagine abortion being your life’s work.

Is it legal? Autry thinks so since it will be in federal waters.

“Part of the reason we’re working on this project so hard is because wealthy people in our country are always going to have access [to abortions], so once again it’s a time now where poor, people of color, marginalized individuals, are gonna suffer –and by suffering I mean like lives lost,” Autry said.

She explained that this ship will operate on federal waters — nine miles from the coast of Texas and three from the coast of Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi — where it can evade those states’ abortion restrictions. PRROWESS will arrange for patients to be transported to the ship, which will vary depending on where they are coming from, once they pass a pre-screening process.

Autry and a team of licensed medical professionals will offer surgical abortions for up to 14 weeks of pregnancy. The PRROWESS team would also offer other point-of-care gynecological services such as testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections.

“The project is being funded with philanthropy and the patients care is on a needs basis, so most individuals will pay little to nothing for services,” Autry said.

When she speaks about lives lost, she is being insincere. There are exceptions for the life of the mother in all the states she mentions. The lives that are lost are those in the womb.

Dr. Autry got the idea from riverboat casinos. There are different laws for gambling on land and on water.

Autry, who is from the South, told the Chronicle that her inspiration traces back to a phenomenon popular along the Mississippi: riverboat casinos. The fact that different laws applied to gambling on land and on water led her to consult with lawyers about whether there may be a way to continue providing abortion access after the Supreme Court reversed the Roe vs. Wade decision that protected the procedure.

“We believe that patients should be able to make a choice,” she said.

The legal team of the PRROWESS now includes maritime lawyers and criminal attorneys, who have determined that a floating clinic in federal waters would be able to legally provide services that individual states may restrict, such as surgical abortions.

The ship will offer surgical abortions for up to 14 weeks. She hopes to open it up in about a year. She estimates it will see 1,800 patients every six months and be open three weeks at a time, closing the fourth week for maintenance and taking into account weather conditions. Helicopters and boats that will transport the women to the ship won’t be able to operate in tropical storm and/or hurricane conditions.

Stay tuned. We’ll see if the doctor gets to continue her life’s work, even if it means moving it out to the Gulf of Mexico.