I am gravely concerned about the threats to the availability of safe, legal first-term abortion and preventive reproductive health care within the state of Virginia.  The proposed regulations present extensively burdensome requirements for clinic buildings that are unrelated to the services that these centers provide and have no proven medical benefit to the patients served.  

The high standard of care provided by women's health centers is proven by their impressive safety record.  Over regulation will limit access to a wide range of preventive health care services provided by Women's Health Clinics.  These services are not limited to abortion care but include life-saving cancer screenings, family planning and sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment.  Medically inappropriate and unnecessarily burdensome regulations would restrict access for the women of Virginia and further marginalize young, low-income, uninsured or underinsured and minority women by decreasing their health care options.

I implore you to ammend these regulations so that they are based purely on medicine and science and that they will not impede access to women's essential health care.

Thank you for your consideration.