Please, as the VA Board of Health, work to protect women's access to reproductive health.  Put a stop to to the politics at patient expense.

The regulations threaten the continued availablitlity of safe, legal first trimester aboration and preventive reporductive health care in multiple locations throughout the state.

Extensive, burdensome requirements for clinic buildings that are unrelated to the services health centers provide will reduce or eliminate patient access to health care.

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.

Please base regulations for women's health centers upon evidence-based medical practices that advance the public health .  Medically inappropriate and unnecessarily burdensome regulations would restrict accessto essential health care services for the women of VA.  It further would marginalize young, low-income uninsured and minority women by decreasing their health care options.

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.

Sincerely,

Kathryn Squires

 canre