We all agree on the importance of ensuring patient health and safety, but the restrictions on women’s health care centers in Virginia enacted by the previous Governor and Attorney General don’t do that. Medical experts, including Dr. Karen Remley, the former Virginia Health Commissioner - who, if I recall correctly stepped down in protest-, and the Virginia Chapter of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists oppose these restrictions because it’s clear that the restrictions have nothing to do with patient safety and everything to do with inserting a politician between a woman and her doctor.

I think we can all agree that the restrictions on women’s health centers in Virginia were about denying access to abortion, period. Politically motivated actions that forced three of 21 women’s health centers in Virginia to close or stop providing abortion services, in part due to these medically-unnecessary restrictions. There was little involving true health or safety motivations behind the TARP laws.

If the restrictions remain unchanged, additional health centers will close – cutting off access to preventative and critical health care for thousands of Virginia women. I support the Board of Health’s decision to amend the medically-unnecessary restrictions designed to close safe, trusted women’s health care centers in Virginia. As a person who is deeply committed to ensuring that all Virginia women have affordable access to safe, legal reproductive health care, I applaud the Board of Health’s decision to stop letting politics drive decisions that affect women’s health. Now is your chance to fix these restrictions and keep Virginia women’s health centers open.