Are there plans to open a floating abortion clinic in the Gulf of Mexico?
By Jacob Alabab-Moser
Copy link
Copy featured image
YES
Dr. Amy Autry, an OB-GYN and professor at the University of California San Francisco, is spearheading an effort to provide reproductive health care, including abortion services up to 14 weeks, on a boat in the Gulf of Mexico.
Autry said she is currently fundraising to acquire and retrofit a vessel as well as cover ongoing expenses, which she estimates will cost at least $20 million.
By occupying federal waters, Autry's legal team believes the floating clinic can legally provide abortions to people living in states that have banned the procedure following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
A similar service, which provides women lacking abortion access with abortion pills in international waters, is offered by Women on Waves.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR
Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.