Doctor leads plan to launch floating abortion hospital off coast of Texas

Clinic would provide faster access to marginalised communities who cannot travel to other states for abortions

A California doctor has proposed the idea for an abortion clinic on the Gulf of Mexico to give access to those in southern states where abortion bans have been enacted.

Last month, the US supreme court struck down Roe V Wade, which established a federal constitutional right to abortion.

As many as 26 states could outlaw abortion without the protections affirmed under Roe v Wade, with state legislatures poised to draft more restrictive laws in the coming weeks and months.

Dr Meg Autry is leading the project to launch of a ship named Prrowess – short for “Protecting Reproductive Rights Of Women Endangered by State Statutes”, reported Newsweek.

Its website states that the ship will act as a comprehensive reproductive health clinic with a full team of licensed health care providers offering surgical abortions up to 14 weeks.

It will also provide contraception and other care to patients living in states where such services are restricted.

“There’s been an assault on reproductive rights in our country and I’m a lifelong advocate for reproductive health and choice. We have to create options and be thoughtful and creative to help people in restrictive states get the health care they deserve,” Dr Autry said.

According to her legal team, there are parts of federal waters where abortions could be provided outside the reach of state laws.

“This is closer and faster access for some people, particularly for working people that live in the southernmost part of these states,” she said.

The doctor said that such a clinic would also help those from marginalised communities access abortions as well as contraceptive care.

“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, marginalised individuals are gonna suffer — and by suffering I mean like lives lost,” she added, according to NBC Bay Area.

Following demands from abortion rights advocates and members of Congress to bolster federal protections for abortion care, US president Joe Biden signed an executive order last week directing federal agencies to protect access in the wake of the US Supreme Court’s decision to revoke a constitutional right to abortion.

The president cannot unilaterally restore Roe. The US Senate failed to pass a measure that would codify those protections into law. Mr Biden has called on Americans to vote for officials who support abortion rights in elections this fall in the hopes of reviving the bill.

Additional reporting by agencies