I am writing to voice my concern about the permanent TRAP regulations.  Please consider carefully the health and safety of Virginia's women when deciding the future of abortion in Virginia.  As an educated woman, health care provider and mother, I urge you to ensure that safe abortion is available to all of Virginia's women.  The TRAP regulations will impose unjustified hardship on women seeking abortion. Decreasing the availablity of safe abortion by imposing obviously unfair regulations on abortion facilities and in some cases, causing them to close, will not make abortion safer.  It will make it more dangerous as women will seek illegal and self-imposed ways to terminate a pregnancy.

It is easily possible to seek an elective cosmetic procedure in an office facility with privacy and discretion. There should be no difference when terminating a pregnancy.  If regulations are needed to ensure safety of women, I urge you to impose these with cautious consideration and the use of evidence-based practice.  That is the only way to be sure that what is being decided is in the best interest of patient safey and privacy. Thank you.