Women and their Doctors should decide, not Politicians
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At a time when women need more access to affordable, high quality health care, not less, we’re disappointed to see politics as usual by this administration. Low-income women and rural women will have even less access to safe abortion care and family planning services.
A medical expert panel of statewide OBGYNs recommended differentiating medical and surgical abortion in relation to the regulations as well as grandfathering in the existing clinics for the architectural requirements. We suggest we go with these original recommendations that are medically appropriate for first trimester abortion care.
Politically-motivated regulations that make it more difficult for health centers to provide high quality health care only make it harder for women and couples to access critical reproductive health care services, including life-saving cancer screenings, family planning, STI testing and treatment, and continued safe, legal abortion care.
The regulations - specifically the time and resources required to physically alter health centers for no medical reason - are likely to increase financial barriers/hurdles for patients as well as reduce women’s ability to find a health care provider.
As a person who has worked in maternal/child health programs in the past, my concern is that by throwing up all these obstacles to impede access, you are actually going to force the poor to access unsafe abortions provided by illegal back alley abortionists, or force a desperate woman to go back to using the infamous coat hanger to solve her problem. I have seen the results of such horrific abortions by women. This causes sepsis in the pregnant woman and hospitalization that is costly to all taxpayers, and in many cases the death of the woman who did not get proper hospitalization quickly enough.
Finally as a health person no one I know advocates abortions. We all want children that are loved and wanted, but at least let the woman decide with her doctor whether that child is wanted. I cannot see the logic in Right to Life advocates who abhor legal and safe abortion, but if the woman takes their approach, these same people are usually advocating reducing/cutting budgets that might provide financial support for that mother and child, both in food and upbringing support. Having only a vision of supporting “life from conception to birth” and then “you’re on your own” is totally obscene.
Please continue hosting public hearings throughout the permanent regulatory process so Virginians’ voices can be heard.
