These new regulations will hurt Virginia women. Extensive, burdensome requirements for clinic buildings that are unrelated to the services health centers provide and have no proven medical benefit will reduce or eliminate patient access to health care. Women need more access to affordable, high quality health care, not less.

If regulations placed on women's health centers are based upon evidence-based medical practices that advance the public health, then women in the Commonwealth will be able to maintain access to vital health care from trusted medical providers. It is wrong to marginalize young, low-income, uninsured and minority women by decreasing their health care options.

Women's health centers is proven by their impressive safety record. Overregulation will limit access to a wide range of preventive reproductive health care services provided by women's health clinics, including life-saving cancer screenings, family planning, and sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment.

Any amendments should be based purely on medicine and science and should not impede women's access to essential health care.