From Huffington Post:
There are 22 facilities that provide first-trimester abortions in Virginia, and all of them may have to close their doors over the next two years if they can’t meet the state government’s rigorous new health clinic regulations.
Virginia lawmakers passed legislation in the spring that required the Department of Health to release a set of “emergency” draft regulations for abortion clinics that were to go into effect by December 31.
The rules, released late on Friday, borrow a number of very specific physical plant requirements from a rulebook intended for the construction of new hospitals. For instance, a clinic must have 5-foot-wide hallways, 8-foot-wide areas outside of procedure rooms, specific numbers of toilets and types of sinks and all the latest requirements for air circulation flow and electrical wiring.
“On the first read, it seems hard to imagine that many facilities will be able to comply,” Jordan Goldberg, state advocacy counsel for the Center for Reproductive Rights, told HuffPost. “We can fairly say that the regulations as drafted are the most severe, onerous and restrictive that have been proposed anywhere. They’re intended to apply to facilities that don’t yet exist.”
If the Board of Health passes the new standards on September 15, abortion clinics have until January to show the state a plan for the extensive and expensive renovations they’ll have to undergo in order to meet the new requirements.
The new regulations are especially onerous and are in place to make abortion unattainable because no provider can meet the standards of the new hospital regulations. Unfortunately, this entire assault is very disingenuous. If the anti-abortion crew or the state of Virginia really cared about the health of women (and men too, for that matter) they would impose the same standards on other outpatient medical centers that offer invasive dental, cosmetic, optical and digestive procedures. These non-abortion outpatient centers currently don’t face similar state oversight, yet they often involve very invasive medical techniques.
Perhaps all outpatient surgery/invasive procedure centers need an upgrade. If that is the case, let’s level the playing field and put the same standards in place for all. Otherwise, let’s just be honest and say the purpose of the bill to make it impossible to perform first trimester abortions in Virginia. Let’s admit that in reality a minority wanted to impose its will on the majority. It didn’t have the votes to outlaw abortion so it tricked foolish lawmakers into this insidious sneak attack to make abortion simply unattainable in Virginia.
This really was a cowardly vote. However, Virginians were warned last election. I guess they will have to live with it or travel outside of the state if they need services.
