- A California doctor is proposing a floating reproductive health clinic to operate in federal waters.
- The boat would sail in the Gulf of Mexico, near states where abortion is banned.
- It's legally untested in the US, but similar European boat projects have worked out.
A California-based OB-GYN is fundraising to offer reproductive healthcare services — including abortion — on a boat offshore in federal waters.
Dr Meg Autry is leading a nonprofit which hopes to launch a floating clinic that would sail in the Gulf of Mexico, circumventing the harsh abortion restrictions in nearby states.
The nonprofit is called PRROWESS, short for Protecting Reproductive Rights Of Women Endangered by State Statutes.
Autry said the project would need $20 million or more to become reality. She did not say how much she had raised already, or immediately respond to Insider's request for more information, sent outside California working hours.
The states Autry wants to target are Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.
The states all have restrictive abortion laws which either came into effect as soon as Roe v. Wade was overturned, or are planning to bring them in soon. They all also have coastlines along the Gulf of Mexico.
Autry, who is professor of obstetrics, gynecology and gynecologic surgery at University of California San Francisco, told NBC Bay Area that the boat would not have to follow the state laws by remaining in federal waters.
The exact borders vary, but they begin roughly nine miles from land and extend to the beginning of international waters.
PRROWESS said it would offer reproductive healthcare including surgical abortion up to 14 weeks, contraception, STI testing, vaccination and some social care and legal aid, "at little to no cost." Autry said the providers on the boat would be mainly volunteers.
For people in coastal areas, the trip offshore is closer and less expensive than traveling to another state where abortion access is possible, she told NBC Bay Area.
As an example, somebody in Houston would have to travel at least 500 miles, to New Mexico, to reach a place with freely-available abortion, but only 50 miles to the sea.
Autry's idea isn't a new one — a floating clinic managed by the Dutch organization Women on Waves has long provided offshore abortion access in countries where it is limited.
In this nonprofit's case, the Dutch-registered vessel picks up patients and ferries them out to international waters. It offers services under the Netherlands' relatively relaxed system.
The legal barriers for a similar project off the US coast remain to be seen, Autry told NBC Bay Area. "I'm sure there will be legal barriers and problems at every part of this journey," she said.
She said she has legal support from reproductive healthcare-focused law nonprofit The Lawyering Project, as well as maritime and criminal defense lawyers. (The Lawyering Project did not immediately respond to Insider's request for confirmation).
Women on Waves faced significant legal barriers of its own, with Moroccan and Portuguese authorities attempting to block them from its waters.
Since the Supreme Court's draft decision on Roe v. Wade was leaked, campaigners have sought similar loopholes — for example, the idea of opening clinics on federal land. However, in late June Vice President Kamala Harris said the White House did not consider the idea workable.
On July 8, President Joe Biden signed an executive order aiming to expand access to medication abortions and contraception. It is unclear how that will play out in states where the most extreme restrictions have been enacted.