Board of Health,

As a practicing emergency physician, I urge the members of the Virginia Board of Health to focus solely on issues of patient safety in making decisions regarding the standards required for centers providing medical abortions. The Board should rise above other partisan or political concerns and fulfill its primary mission to ensure women are provided care in a medically safe environment equivalent to the standards required for medical centers at which other outpatient surgical procedures are performed. No distinctions are made between other types of subspecialty invasive surgical care and no exception should be made in the case of medical abortion because of non-medical concerns. On behalf of women seeking safe, legal abortion care, I ask that the Board come to a clear decision in this matter with a view to preventing another woman from becoming my patient. Peter Mellis, MD