As a young woman in the years just before and after Roe v. Wade, I obtained birth control and health care from Planned Parenthood clinics. It would have been prohibitively expensive and awkward for me to access this care in any other way. The availability of reproductive care was critical in my health, safety, emotional well being and long term life planning when I was of college age. I never needed abort6ion care -- not least because the clinics were open to help me avoid that need.

Today I am seeing male religious conservatives bent upon making this care unavailable to young and low income women. Their excuse is concern for women's well-being, but this is a flimsy excuse when you balance the welfare of thousands of women who depend on reproductive-care clinics like Planned Parenthood's against the faux concern these legislators show over a vanishingly small number of cases in which they claim abortion requires more regulation.

While obstructing efforts to expand Medicaid in a way that would serve many more low-income Virginians in an orderly way (that is, real timely care, not "emergency room primary care"), with Federal assistance, this adminstration and legislature has made the over-regulation of a woman's reproductive system a priority. The gender politics are ridiculously obvious.

Women create their proportionate share of prosperity in this state. Women create jobs, perform jobs, raise and educate the next generation, support6 or economy. Denial of healthcare uniquely needed by women -- healthcare which allows them to regulate their reproductive lives -- is not only discriminatory, it undermines the stability of the entire Commonwealth.

Use common sense and reject the "TRAP" regulations that would force women's clinics to close.