I urge the Virginia Board of Health to amend the current TRAP requirements for facilities providing abortion services.

The current requirements under TRAP are overly burdensome and unnecessary for ensuring the safety and health of the women recieving abortions. It is obvious to laypersons and those currently or previously involved in building regulations and permitting that the requirements are highly unreasonable, as they impose arbitrary and capricious regulations not imposed upon other medical outpatient facilities.

While abortion is a socially controversial practice, it is and has been a medically safe procedure, conducted in outpatient facilities in Virginia for decades, since Roe v. Wade until the present. The imposition of TRAP requirements has in no way improved the safety of women. It has only resulted in overly burdensome facilities enhancement, specifically designed to eliminate their existance.

When the availability or cost of an abortion becomes limited, women desparate to abort will resort to dangerous options.

I laud the Virginia Board of Health in considering changes for amending TRAP requirements and urge consideration of eliminating them altogether.