Pro-life proponents are asking the Virginia Board of Health to formally adopt proposed abortion facility regulations that will protect the health and safety of women in Virginia. The proposed regulations close a loophole that has allowed abortion facilities to escape standards that all medical facilities must follow. Alliance Defending Freedom sent a letter Thursday that was submitted during a public comment period that ended Friday.
“Abortionists should be held to the same health and safety standards as everyone else,” said senior counsel Casey Mattox. “Their resistance to such standards exposes their real attitude toward women. Planned Parenthood, for example, is a billion-dollar corporation that performs an abortion every 95 seconds. It is not too much to expect that abortionists, including the nation’s largest abortion seller, meet basic standards to protect women’s health.”
The Alliance Defending Freedom letter explains that the standards are designed “to ensure that women who seek abortion at facilities subject to the regulations do so in facilities that are clean, safe, inspected and licensed by the Commonwealth.” Federal court rulings affirm that such safety regulations serve a valid state interest “designed to ensure the health and appropriate care of women seeking abortions.”
The letter also explains that the recommendations are constitutionally sound and “are a compilation of standards recommended by the Centers for Disease Control, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the Joint Commission.”
Alliance Defending Freedom sent its first letter in support of the regulations to the Virginia Department of Health in September of last year. The Board of Health passed them, and the attorney general and the governor of Virginia approved them in January. The board will make a final decision by April 12, after it has examined all comments submitted during the public comment period.
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