The Alliance for Progressive Values (APV) strongly opposes the final regulations governing licensure of abortion facilities issued by the Virginia Department of Health.

We are now in the final stage of the regulatory approval process and throughout this exercise we have been disturbed at the level of misinformation on and politicization of this matter. This began in the General Assembly with the rush to pass TRAP (Targeted Regulations against Abortion Providers), in 2011 and has continued with the
administration and Attorney General's intrusive meddling.  This has seriously compromised the integrity of the Board and laid bare an ideological and political assault on women's health that APV will continue to oppose.

The Virginia Department of Health is about to implement new and highly restrictive regulations pertaining to clinics that perform more than five (5) abortive procedures in the course of any single month. These regulations ignore clear scientific evidence that shows that abortions are among the safest procedures women can undergo in an out-patient
clinic setting and seek instead to categorize abortion alongside such serious surgical procedures as open heart surgery which are performed in a hospital. In fact the regulations are clearly designed to specifically limit a woman's right to these legal procedures by imposing onerous and costly new requirements on women's health and abortion providers. When implemented, these regulations will make Virginia one of the least accessible states for women seeking abortion services in the nation.

The new TRAP regulations require Virginia's women's health clinics to adhere to structural and design protocols formally only associated with hospitals: for instance requiring substantial architectural changes such as significantly larger hallways and examination rooms be standard. These new rules will make it nearly impossible for existing
clinics to remain in operation. Of the twenty one (21) clinics now providing first trimester abortions in Virginia it is estimated that no more than four (4) could remain open under the new regulations.

It should be stressed that first trimester abortions are routine, safe and legal in Virginia. Currently abortion providers are covered under the same regulations as physician practices that perform certain other, and in some cases statistically more dangerous invasive procedures, including dental, ocular and plastic surgery (none of which are covered by the new regulations). There is no evidence that there is any need for a change. Worse still, anti-choice advocates with close ties to the current administration have argued that the prescribing of emergency contraceptives should be treated as a form of abortion and doctors who proscribe the legal and safe prophylactic in their offices should also fall under these new restrictions.

Specifically, the regulations require women's clinics to adhere to standards found in the 2010 Guidelines for Design and Construction of Health Care Facilities. In particular the Guidelines for Outpatient Surgical Facilities, otherwise called ambulatory surgical facilities. It is important to note that these guidelines were not intended for existing structures but meant to govern the construction of new facilities, especially hospitals.  The reasonable and commonplace move to grandfather in existing clinics that have been serving their communities safely for decades was at first accepted by the Board but later under clear pressure from the Attorney General's office, the Board took the unusual action of applying these sweeping new rules to all clinics.

By arbitrarily linking women's clinics and doctors' out-patient surgical services that provide abortions with regulations designed for large hospital settings, the Department of Health, with the backing of the Governor and Attorney General, is launching a concerted, targeted attack on women's reproductive choice in Virginia under the guise of innocuous structural mandates. This is not only dishonest, but it is also potentially dangerous. These regulations will all but eliminate women's access to safe and legal abortions in much of Virginia and could lead to
women being forced into difficult medical situations such as carrying a life threatening pregnancy to term or being forced to seek abortions from unlicensed providers.

Clearly the legislation that forced this new rule making, including the emergency designation that needlessly rushed the new regulations into effect is the culmination of years of effort on the part of those who would seek to further restrict or eliminate a woman's reproductive rights in general. The new, arbitrary architectural requirements are
simply the latest in a series of actions meant to restrict access not only to abortion but to any and all forms of reproductive choice including contraceptives and sex education.

  It should also not be lost in the highly emotional debate over abortion, that many of the clinics that will be forced to close as a result of the new TRAP regulations also provide other, much needed services to women around the state including PAP smears, STD testing, HPV inoculation and other routine but necessary treatments, often at low cost. The Alliance for Progressive Values strongly opposes the new Department of Health regulations. APV will continue to work to repeal or heavily amend these pernicious rules but sadly the damage is already done. As presently constituted, these regulations set women's health in Virginia back decades and add unnecessary risks and costs
for no medically sustainable reason. These regulations have nothing to do with protecting women's health and everything to do with proscribing women's reproductive choices.