Why is the GOP waging a full-fledged war on America’s women?  Why are GOP ideas no longer based in reality?  We are your sisters, mothers, and daughters. These regulations should NOT become permanent because they attempt to reduce, hamper, or eliminate  women’s constitutional rights to abortion and reproductive health services.    

Please stop the war on women and their bodies.

You, the members of the Virignia Board of Health will decide which regulations are placed on women’s health centers when the temporary regulations expire.  While the Department of Health has proposed permanent regulations identical to the temporary regulations - these regulations threaten the continued availability of safe, legal first-trimester abortion and preventive reproductive health care in multiple locations throughout the state.

Clearly, these racist and misogynistic regulations place politics before the health and well-being of patients and are not reality-based.  In other words, these regualtions are unrelated to the services that health centers provide.  The regulations will increase the financial hurdles to health care for patients, with no proven medical benefit to patients. Women need more access to affordable, high quality health care, not less.  Medically inappropriate and unnecessarily burdensome regulations would restrict access to essential health care services for the women of Virginia and further marginalize young, low-income, uninsured and minority women by decreasing their health care options.

The high standard of care provided by women's health centers is proven by their impressive safety record. Abortion is one of the safest medical procedures. Overregulation will limit access to a wide range of preventive reproductive health care services provided by women's health clinics, including life-saving cancer screenings, family planning, and sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment.

It is my hope that the regulations will be amended to be based purely on medicine and science and should not impede women's access to essential health care.