Plans for a floating health clinic are in the works to help people get surgical abortions regardless of their home state’s abortion laws.
PRROWESS — Protecting Reproductive Rights of Women Endangered by State Statutes — is an organization that will offer reproductive health and social services, including contraception, STI screenings, and surgical abortion up to 14 weeks.
A doctor plans to open PRROWESS in the Gulf of Mexico as a floating facility. Their programming and procedures won’t be subject to state restrictions.
“This is all about bodily autonomy and choice, and so people have a right to be pregnant and also not to have a pregnancy,” Dr. Meg Autry, of the University of California–San Francisco, told CBS San Francisco.
Autry, vice chair of graduate medicine education and continuing education for the Department of Obstetrics, Gynology and Reproductive Sciences at UCSF, hopes to offer these services at a low or zero cost.
According to the organization’s website,Patients who live in Texas, Louisiana or other Gulf Coast states will be served by the clinic. The clinic is expected to be operational for three weeks per month.
According to the organization facilities such as these have been used for years by military relief organizations and the military. Patients can also receive health care at a floating clinic.
Because of restrictions in Gulf state health care, many people find it difficult to travel out of state for treatment. PRROWESS strives to provide faster services for these people.
“The vessel will be Coast Guard inspected and will have helicopter access for transport and emergencies,”The organization states.
According to the organization, once a patient has been pre-screened, arrangements are made to transport them to the floating hospital.
The floating health center vessel will cost at most $20 million. The group is asking for donations that include a donated vessel.
“People that care deeply about access to reproductive rights know that we have to be innovative and creative in order for patients to be able to continue to have access,”Autry stated this to the outlet.
“We know internationally that when access is limited or abortion is illegal, patients die.”
Autry anticipates opening the floating clinic within a year, despite the challenges.
“There’s operational, logistics, there’s the whole idea of maritime law and then there’s obviously security, there’s liability, I mean the challenges are countless,”Autry spoke.
According to the organization’s guidelines, money that isn’t used for the project will be given to other similar efforts to promote abortion access.