To solve the problem of abortion access, Meg Autry is seeking inspiration from an unlikely source: riverboat casinos.
As access to abortion deteriorated in the past year, Autry — an obstetrician-gynecologist at the University of California San Francisco — had been toying with a years-old idea to reach areas where such medical services were already becoming highly restricted. When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last month, her drive to turn it into reality intensified.
The project: A clinic floating in federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico that will provide abortion care to residents from neighboring states including Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas — all of which are set to ban or severely restrict the procedure.