First of all, thank you for the opportunity to comment on the proposed new regulations on Women's Health Care Providers. This website is a very helpful forum for public comment, and as a busy architect, writer, volunteer and mother of two, I appreciate being able to provide feedback on proposed legislation late at night, after work, meals, homework, and bedtime stories have been attended to.

It is essential to the health of our society and our economy that women have access to affordable health care--reproductive and otherwise. Proposed new regulations affecting providers of women's health care, and particularly abortion providers, will put many essential clinics out of business and keep women from getting the care they need. If these regulations had a medical benefit, that would be one thing. However, existing medical-and evidence-based research shows that women are being safely and caringly served by the very providers who would suffer under the new regulations. Cancer screenings, family planning services, and services related to preventing STDs would be made more difficult to obtain, particularly by young, low-income, minority, and unisured patients. These women need access to care not only because it's a matter of basic human decency, but becasue Virginia needs for them to thrive as mothers, sisters, daughters, wives, and contributors to our communities and workplaces.

Burdensome new regulations will harm a vital, working system of women's health centers in Virginia. Instead, let's put our focus on fixing systems that are NOT working--on fixing bridges and decaying infrastructue, of creating jobs and opportunity in the Commonwealth.

Thank you and all best,

Whitney Morrill, Architect, NCARB, LEED AP