The Virginia NOW Chapter (National Organization for Women) urges the Board of Health to repeal the current regulations of women’s health centers and to provide new regulations that will protect women’s health and preserve access to comprehensive reproductive care.

Virginia NOW is a statewide membership organization with chapters on Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax County, Prince William County, the Vienna-McLean area, Montgomery County, Rockbridge Valley, Charlottesville area, Fredericksburg area, and Richmond as well as individual members throughout the Commonwealth. Our purpose is to advance women’s rights and status and social justice for all.

Our concern for women’s health stems from the fact that health affects all other aspects of women’s lives and family well-being, including the ability to participate in the workforce and contribute to the economy. We are particularly concerned that women’s clinics are labeled as “abortion clinics” without regard for the many other services that they provide, often for women for whom these clinics are the main or only source of health care. Three of 21 women’s health centers in Virginia have already been forced to close or stop providing abortion services due to these burdensome and medically-unnecessary regulations. If the regulations remain unchanged additional health centers will close; this will cut off access to preventive health care - including screenings for cancer and sexually transmitted infections and provision of contraception - for low-income women, women of color, students, and other under-served populations.

We fully support regulations that safeguard health as long as these regulations are based in science and improve existing services; the current regulations include medically unnecessary requirements that will not advance women’s health care and, as noted, have already resulted in clinic closings. We urge the Board to develop new regulations that will enable current women’s health centers to remain open and continue to serve patients with high quality services.

It would be a privilege to work with the Department of Health in drafting regulations that will benefit women's health and support health professionals.