I was a freshman in college when abortions were legalized, and I remember the happiness among some of the women on my hall, at least one of whom had endured the scary of experience of traveling to DC from her home in NC for a back-alley, illegal abortion. I don't recall all the details of that, except I remember that it was terrifying for her -- literally, she snuck in a back door to face a man who didn't look at all like a doctor weilding a knife. It sounded horribly unsafe and may have left her physically and emotionally scarred for life.

I celebrated with the other women that none of the rest of us would ever have to go through that if we accidentally got pregnant. Accidents do happen all the time and ending pregnancies is nothing new. It's just whether it can be done safely or not. Men never face that tough decision, and men should not be allowed to tell women what they can do with their bodies, their lives, their futures.

Virginia already has made some bad decisions that take rights away from women, and I hope these decisions will stop. The legislators need to listen to the medical experts, not the emotional fringe. I'm old enough to remember, and I won't to preserve reproductive rights for my daughters.

Please put an end to targeted regulations on abortion providers. These are not designed to protect women -- they're designed to shut down safe abortion centers.