Penalty for Violating Law

The proposed changes for section 12VAC5-412-130 drastically reduce the possibility that abortion centers will be penalized for violating the law when it comes to standards of patient care. But inspection reports from the past several years have proven that abortion centers in Virginia have significant health and safety violations.

I recommend that the language of 12VAC5-412-130 remain unchanged with respect to requiring that abortion clinics be held accountable for all of Article 1, Chapter 5 of Title 32.1 instead of only a few select parts. Additionally, in light of the fact that we have seen several recent examples of abortion centers either failing to have any documentation to prove their physicians are validly licensed to practice in Virginia, or in some cases, actually employing staff who are verifiably unlicensed when a license is otherwise required. In some cases, unlicensed and untrained staff were allowed to handle narcotic in violation of state and federal law.  I recommend that the regulations be amended to require an automatic one-year suspension of any abortion facility license that is shown to have violated any state or federal statute regarding professional licensing.