Courts

Breaking Water: Southern Gambling Loophole Inspires A Dobbs Work Around

I refuse to shy away from the opportunity to use the words 'radical' and 'nautical' in a sentence and have it make sense.

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yacht sailing sailboat boatSince The Christian Six™ did their best to impose strict Catholicism on the American public with the reversal of Roe, there have been several attempts to keep basic healthcare available for folks with uteruses. Kansas voted to keep abortion accessible. Idaho has turned to the courts to keep access. Those are expected avenues — you’ve gotta turn to California for the left-field stuff. Dr. Meg Autry, an OB-GYN and professor at the University of California San Francisco, had the clever idea to look to the waters.

[Dr. Meg Autry]  started looking into the idea that would eventually become PRROWESS.

It’s a nonprofit organization, dedicated to creating and running a floating health clinic that will eventually anchor in federal waters off the Gulf Coast — circumventing restrictive state laws by providing “reproductive health and wellness services, including contraception and surgical abortion,” for free, in federal waters.

The idea came from casino boats that float on the Mississippi River. Autry, originally from the South, was already familiar with the paddle steamers that circumvented state gambling regulations by staying on the water…When it became clear that every state along the Gulf Coast was moving to restrict access to abortion, Autry and the experts she was consulting with began to focus on that body of water.

As some have noticed, PRROWESS is not the first time that doctors have went off land to care for their patients.

As awesome and precedented the idea is, there are still a few practical matters that need to be thought through.

Beyond surgical abortions up to 14 weeks, the clinic will offer “contraception including emergency contraception, on site testing for sexually transmitted infections (STIs), STI treatment, and vaccination.”

There’s an “incredible amount of detail and planning” that has gone into it, she said.

Part of that planning is to create a welcoming environment, rather than a scary “dark alley,” according to Autry. “We hope it’s going to be aesthetically pleasing.”

The organization is also looking into including legal aid, social workers, and therapists in the clinic’s offerings, so that patients “feel well taken care of” from a social standpoint as well as a medical one.

Sure would be great if a couple of the firms that are covering costs for abortion access would also allow a couple of their attorneys to clock pro-bono hours assisting the ship with its legal issues. If only there were some way to broadly share the information with the capable lawyers who, after seeing civil rights regress 50 years, asked themselves what they could do to help restore agency to half of America’s population. If you have any ideas on how we could reach them or share their information with the workers at PPROWESS, please let us know at tips@abovethelaw.com. Might even be a good idea to share the news on your Twitters and Instas for increased visibility or whatever.

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Abortions at Sea: A California Doctor’s Plan to Bypass Southern States’ Ban [NBC Los Angeles]

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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