The Board of Health has allowed themselves to become the tool of an agenda that has nothing to do with protecting women.  Please do the job you are supposed to do and focus on real health care needs, not forcing the specific agenda of a particular religious view. Abortion laws exist and this is nothing more than a blatant ploy to undermine our laws by those who object to them, but can’t get the support to change the laws.

The Board of Health must repeal and rewrite the current regulations of women’s health centers to protect women’s health and preserve access to comprehensive reproductive care. Current regulations of Virginia women’s health centers are about politics, not medicine. Doctors, health care professionals, and a majority of Virginians oppose these regulations. If the regulations are not repealed and rewritten, tens of thousands of Virginia women and families will lose access to critical medical care. The current burdensome and medically-unnecessary regulations will close women’s health centers, restricting access to the comprehensive health care these centers provide, like critical cancer screenings and birth control, including abortion. I urge the Commissioner and Board of Health to rescind these politicized restrictions and begin drafting new regulations that rely on evidence-based medicine.

The TRAP laws are emotionally intrusive, not necessary and causes more emotional distress for elective proceedures. Virginia's women should not have to face "counseling" before a medical procedure (elective termination) as no other procedure has such a requirement - not even hysterectomies, tubal ligation or vasectomies. Leave medical decisions and family planning decisions up to women and their doctors.