Board of Health,

Planned Parenthood is trying to convince you to cut back on the standards of safety for abortion centers but is that fulfilling their desire to help women, I think not. Why would you say to the women of our state that their health is not as important as that of the average Virginian who walks into a hospital for even the smallest surgery" No matter what you believe about abortion the simple fact is those centers must be safe as an abortion is a surgical procedure no matter what you think about it. Last year I had what they called minimally invasive surgery at a surgery center. They told me that their rate of infection from surgery was much lower than the average hospital. At some point in the past a state board of health said if youre going to do even arthroscopic surgery the standards must be high. Because of that decision I, along with thousands of others, have had surgery without the worry of infection.Please do not subject the women of Virginia to lower standards because Planned Parenthood sees this as people trying to support abortion. The matter is not about the issue of abortion, it is about the health of these ladies. I want VA to give these women an environment and the assurance that they we have done everything we can to make sure those centers are safe and that they follow procedures that have proven to save lives.I recently found out that some centers connected with the UVA Medical center was experiencing issues with infection. The word was that when a person got an infection at one of the centers it cost UVA eighty thousand dollars, on average, to treat that person. Is Planned Parenthood willing to sacrifice those kinds of dollars" One last thing, if infection or complications come to these women because of lower standards will Planned Parenthood treat these women or will they shuffle them off to a local hospital who is then saddled with the burden of taking care of a problem that could have been avoided by keeping the standards as high for a hospital as it is for these centers.Thank you for the hard work that you do in protecting all of us as we enter into the hospital or surgical centers. I ask you to keep all of us safe in the days ahead and do not lower the standards for abortion centers and place into danger the lives of the women who enter in.Sincerely,Carl Weiser Carll Weiser