Although my sincerest wish and hope is for abortion to be unnecessary, pregnancy is not a safe or beautiful part of life for women experiencing illness, who have been victims of rape or incest, for whom carrying to term a fetus with severe defects is against their ethical beliefs, and those for whom carrying a fetus to term will place themselves and their families at risk.

Removing opportunities for safe abortions in Virginia through politically motivated TARP is wrong.  I have aided women who made the difficult decision to terminate a pregnancy for all the above reasons.  The cruelty of denying a recognized right to privacy between a physican and patient is overwhelming.   More and more, I am recognizing the effects of religious intolerance in Virginia, and I am frightened for the future.   I worry that in a possible future, women like myself who experienced repeated spontaneous abortion, aka miscarriage, will be subject to close examination by the legal system run amok.  In China, forced abortion caused suffering.  For me, interference in reproductive rights is interference, whether it  takes place in a democracy or a theocracy or a communist state.