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Prowess [1]

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Date: 2022-07-08

Criminalizing abortion is a miscarriage of Justice.

I was listening to the news this morning and I heard that a San Francisco doctor is planning to provide free abortion services on a ship off the coast of Texas. The name of the ship is Prowess. Because the ship will be outside of Texas’ jurisdiction and territorial waters, only Federal law can regulate the ship’s activities. I can’t find any links to this story, but it was on NPR news. If anyone has any links, please share.

These services will begin early next year. The group needs to raise $20M to hire medical staff and other support. It will cost women roughly $150.00 to travel from Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana to reach the ship. Transport services will be provided. And even helicopter service will be provided in emergencies. Travel costs will be a tiny fraction of what it would cost to travel from Texas to California to receive reproductive healthcare services.

I find this fascinating, especially from a legal perspective. Any efforts by Red States to stop these services will be thwarted since they have no legal jurisdiction. Even the Mississippi Attorney General who brought the case to the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade has acknowledged that Mississippi has no jurisdiction over the Gulf of Mexico where the ship will be stationed.

I assume that the name Prowess was derived from USS Prowess, which was a U.S. Naval ship built during World War II. In the mid-1960’s, she was converted into a training ship for the U.S. Naval Reserve. The irony is that Prowess was built in Chickasaw, Alabama.

But this idea is not new. Women on Waves has provided abortion services for several years now. Here’s some info from the womenonwaves.org website:

Women on Waves sails a ship to countries where abortion is illegal. With the use of a ship, early medical abortions can be provided safely, professionally, and legally. Applicability of national penal legislation, and thus also of abortion law, extends only to territorial waters; outside that 12-mile radius (or 2 hours sailing) it is thus Dutch law that applies on board the ship, which means that all our activities are legal.

Millions of women worldwide have used Mifepristone and Misoprostol to terminate pregnancy with impressive safety and efficacy. The medicines have been on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines since 2005.

Women on Waves has already created enormous public interest in its efforts and has completed successful campaigns in Ireland (2001), Poland (2003,) and Portugal (2004), Spain (2008), Morocco (2012), Guatemala (2-2017) and Mexico (4-2017).

And here’s a two-minute video which is worth watching:

https://youtu.be/aWkBUmEkwbs?t=19

Let’s discuss this in the comments. I’d like to hear what you think, as always.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/7/8/2109316/-Prowess

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