News And Opinions

The skinny about TRAP (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) legislation is this:

• TRAP is meant to close clinics that provide abortions by imposing extreme and unnecessary building regulations.
• The Board of Health will be voting on the new emergency regulations on September 15th.
• Of the 21 abortion clinics in Virginia, none meet or will be able to meet the current draft emergency regulations.
• There has been no democratic process for Virginia's TRAP legislation. The process began by the quiet addition of a single phrase into an unrelated bill. Due to the "emergency" nature of the legislation, public opinion has taken no part in this process.

TRAP supporters say they are trying to look out for womens' health. This is not the case. Find in this stream a collection of articles written about the TRAP legislation in Virginia. If we don't fight back against this legislation, most if not all facilities providing first trimester abortions in Virginia face a very real threat of closing.

As the article "How Kansas Banned Abortion" explains

" Before the law, South Carolina had 14 abortion clinics; now the state has three. Since then, South Carolina has become a model for other states looking to use TRAP laws to outlaw abortion. One state where abortion opponents are pushing South Carolina’s rulebook is Virginia, which asked its health board to draw up a set of abortion-clinic regulations, and a draft of the new regulations will be ready by September 15. "

Virginia's draft regulations are now being hailed the most severe in the country. Currently, none of the abortion clinics in Virginia meet (or in fact can meet) the unnecessarily restrictive building and architectural codes required by those regulations.

Please read through a few of these articles or the excerpts drawn from them, and then take action against this attack on women's rights!

Is Virginia's Extreme Abortion Law the Most Restrictive Yet?

by Rosemary Kitchen
August 31, 2011

"Executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia, Tarina Keene, said, "It would be challenging for the majority of our facilities to continue offering first-trimester care. These are designed to really cease first-trimester abortion services in the Commonwealth of Virginia."

Keene is likely right. Anti-choice advocates know that trying to take away women's rights is not working, so they are setting up every road block that they can instead. Anti-choice advocates do not care about the women who seek abortion services. They just want to know that they did what they could to take away her right to get one.

"There's no doubt in my mind that this is an attack on Roe," said Keene. "You can ban abortion by making it inaccessible." "

http://politics.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474980125171

Virginia Legislation May Shut Down Abortion Providers

By COURTNEY HUTCHISON, ABC News Medical Unit

Aug. 31, 2011

" "Colonoscopies, dental surgery and plastic surgery are much more invasive than the abortions we provide, and they are not being asked to live up to this kind of strict regulation. That tells you right there that this is not about safety, it's about politics," Abbey says. Under the proposed regulations, she believes that none of her four clinics would be able to operate at this time.

According to Ted Miller, a spokesman for Naral Pro-Choice America, none of the 21 clinics providing abortions currently meet the rigorous standards laid out in the draft regulation. 

"Abortion providers are already the most regulated health care providers in the state, and abortion remains one of the safest medical procedures," he said. "They're specifying what fabric can be used on window coverings, the ceiling height, how loud the air conditioning can be. What does this have to do with women's safety? This has to do with politics." "

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/WomensHealth/virginia-legislation-shut-abortion-providers/story?id=14412922

Are Virginia's New Abortion Rules the Worst Yet?

By Kate Sheppard
Tue Aug. 30, 2011

"The regulations require Virginia's 22 clinics to meet strict new physical standards; pre-op rooms, for example, must measure at least 80 square feet, and operating rooms must measure 250 square feet. Hallways must be at least five feet wide. The requirements are based on the state's 2010 guidelines for new outpatient surgical facilities.

Tarina Keene, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia, told Mother Jones on Monday that the new rules may actually be the most strict regulations in the United States. "It would be challenging for the majority of our facilities to continue offering first-trimester care," Keene said. "These are designed to really cease first-trimester abortion services in the Commonwealth of Virginia."

The president of Washington, D.C.'s Planned Parenthood chapter has already told the Washington Post that she doesn't believe that a clinic in Falls Church, Virginia, will be able to meet all of those requirements. Keene said that many other clinics in the state won't be able to meet them, either—which she thinks is exactly the reason the Department of Health wrote them that way. "There's no doubt in my mind that this is an attack on Roe," said Keene. "You can ban abortion by making it inaccessible." "

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/08/are-virginas-new-abortion-regs-worst-yet

Planned rules for Va. abortion clinics called 'an attack'

By Julian Walker
August 30, 2011

"Officials at abortion clinics around Virginia said Monday that their offices do not meet building standards in draft state regulations, with one arguing that the move is "an attack on reproductive rights" intended to force clinics to close, not enhance safety as some proponents suggest.

One Planned Parenthood official said its seven clinics in Virginia may not meet all of the new physical standards without costly modifications. Among them are its five newer facilities, including the center on Newtown Road in Virginia Beach that opened last year.

Other clinic operators find themselves in a similar fix. An official at the Women's Wellness Center in Virginia Beach said that facility, as presently situated, would not meet the proposed regulatory standards. And Jill Abbey, director of the Richmond Medical Center for Women, which also oversees clinics in Charlottesville, Roanoke and Newport News, said that even though they've operated successfully for decades, their design doesn't match the pending rules.

"These regulations are not about safety, they're about closing abortion clinics, plain and simple," Abbey said, calling them an attack on reproductive rights by anti-abortion Gov. Bob McDonnell."

http://hamptonroads.com/2011/08/planned-rules-va-abortion-clinics-called-attack

Virginia Abortion Clinics Threatened By New Regulations

Laura Bassett
First Posted: 8/29/11

"There are 22 facilities that provide first-trimester abortions in Virginia, and all of them may have to close their doors over the next two years if they can't meet the state government's rigorous new health clinic regulations...

The rules, released late on Friday, borrow a number of very specific physical plant requirements from a rulebook intended for the construction of new hospitals. For instance, a clinic must have 5-foot-wide hallways, 8-foot-wide areas outside of procedure rooms, specific numbers of toilets and types of sinks and all the latest requirements for air circulation flow and electrical wiring.

"On the first read, it seems hard to imagine that many facilities will be able to comply," Jordan Goldberg, state advocacy counsel for the Center for Reproductive Rights, told HuffPost. "We can fairly say that the regulations as drafted are the most severe, onerous and restrictive that have been proposed anywhere. They're intended to apply to facilities that don't yet exist." "

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/29/virginia-abortion-clinics-new-rules_n_940975.html?ref=mostpopular

Draft regulations for Va. abortion clinics could lead some to close, operators say

By Anita Kumar and Lena H. Sun
Published: August 26

"The regulations require the same strict physical requirements as outpatient surgical centers that would be doing complex and invasive surgery, abortion rights activists said. The new requirements are based on dozens of pages of guidelines for health-care facilities published by the Facility Guidelines Institute, a nonprofit group. They specify size of exam rooms (minimum “clear floor area of 80 feet”), public corridors that are a minimum width of 5 feet, and minimum ceiling heights of 7 feet 10 inches.

“The physical plant requirements would be just about the worst in the country,” said Elizabeth Nash, a public policy analyst with the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit reproductive health research center that gathers comprehensive data on abortion in the United States. “They will require abortion clinics to meet the physical plant requirements of hospitals, which is completely out of scale with the safe nature of abortion.”"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/draft-regulations-for-va-abortion-clinics-could-lead-some-to-close-operators-say/2011/08/26/gIQAapB8gJ_story.html

Clouded push for abortion rules

The Virginian-Pilot
© September 6, 2011

" Supporters' claims that legislation requiring the new regulations was animated by concern for patient safety aren't fooling anyone. If that were the motive, the law would have been aimed at raising the level of care at every outpatient surgical center across the state rather than simply those that perform five or more first-trimester abortions each month.

As a means to ending unwanted pregnancies, abortion is wrought with all sorts of moral and ethical implications, all of which have contributed to a national debate that has haunted generations of Americans. Yet, as long as there are unwanted pregnancies, there will be demand for abortion.

If access to clean, safe facilities is reduced through these regulations, more women may well seek to end their pregnancies by risking their own lives in dangerous, unsanitary - and unlicensed - clinics, as many did in the years before the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a woman's right to choose in Roe v. Wade. "

http://hamptonroads.com/2011/09/clouded-push-abortion-rules

Morality politics are hard on women

Laura Bucklin, Stafford
Date published: 9/5/2011

" These unjustified regulations impose burdensome and costly requirements that are not medically necessary or appropriate, and that are not imposed on Virginia medical providers performing other in-office procedures. If a woman's health is at risk, as some claim, then would it not also be just to make sure other outpatient office-based surgical services be mandated to do the same?

Dental extractions, vasectomies, and dermatological lesion removals are just some examples of procedures that require anesthesia and local surgery. However, no one is calling for new extensive reconstruction and regulation of these offices for the services they provide, despite the health risks those patients take.

First-trimester abortions remain one of the safest of all in-office surgical procedures. Abortion should not be regulated differently from other outpatient procedures that are safely provided in non-hospital medical facilities. "

http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2011/092011/09052011/647962

Learn about Virginia's proposed 'emergency' regulations for abortion clinics

By Prue Salasky
12:00 p.m. EDT, September 7, 2011

"12:16  Erin Zabel: These centers also provide a wide range of preventative reproductive health care too--often low-cost, so if they close these services will not be available either. 

12:16 Comment From GuestGuest: ] if a woman is given an abortion pill/pill combination to take at home verses a "surgical" abortion will the regulations apply to the entitity dispensing the medication? or just to regulations for an ambulatory "surgery" center? 

12:17  Erin Zabel: GREAT question, and yes this applies to medication abortion as well. 

12:17  Erin Zabel: A health center must adhere to 2010 building standards to even dispense the medication abortion pill. 

12:18  [Comment From SueSue: ]  What are some of the more striking building or construction requirements covered by the new regs? I've heard it covers even types of sinks ...? 

12:19  Erin Zabel: There are requirements for placement of closets, square footage requirements, width of hallways, fire safety ratings of walls and ceilings... "

http://www.dailypress.com/health/dp-live-health-chat-abortion-clinics-20110901,0,7099842.htmlstory

A beginner's guide to banning abortion, from the USA

By Tim Stanley, US politics
Last updated: September 1st, 2011

" Since the 2010 landslide, the prolifers have adopted a new strategy. Rather than shouting about a national ban and obsessing about picking the right presidential candidate, prolifers have refocused on making life uncomfortable for local abortion providers. Beneath the radar, state-by-state, they are starting to get the job done.

Take Kansas. In April 2011, Republican lawmakers introduced new regulations for the three remaining abortion clinics in the state. The regulations were dubbed “targeted regulation of abortion providers”, or TRAP laws. They specified everything from the size and temperature of counselling rooms to the appropriate number of janitorial closets. The regulations were issued after business hours on a Friday and clinics were given until Monday the next week to comply. Unsurprisingly, none of them were able to rebuild their premises in time. For a few hours it looked like Kansas would become the first state since 1973 to totally outlaw abortion.

Of course, as always happens in America, a judge intervened. Two clinics were given a stay of execution and the battle is now in the courts. But the war has spread to Virginia, where Republicans are using TRAP laws to try to shut down 22 clinics within 2 years. The genius of this strategy is that it has avoided the usual religious semantics by couching the prolife position in the language of “health and safety”. Republican lawmakers have insisted throughout that they are just trying to provide the best service for women seeking a termination. They don’t mean to restrict that service – it’s just that their standards happen to be very, very, very high. "

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100102706/a-beginners-guide-to-banning-abortion-from-the-usa/

Virginia abortion clinics say new regulations threaten access to services

Joe Dashiell
August 30, 2011

" Tanya Semones is a field Coordinator with Planned Parenthood Health Systems in Roanoke. "These draft regulations are politicaly motivated," Semones told News 7. "They are driven by ideology, and the desire to end safe, legal access to first trimester abortion in Virginia," she said.

A spokesman for The Family Foundation said the new regulations will improve the health and safety of Virginia's abortion clinics. Chris Freund spoke to News 7 in a telephone interview Tuesday afternoon. "We think that most Virginians understand that standards calling for regular inspections, sanitary conditions and emergency equipment are very reasonable," Freund said. "

http://articles.wdbj7.com/2011-08-30/abortion-clinics_29947487

Virginia Department of Health Issues Draft Abortion Clinic Regulations

August 30th, 2011
By Dave Andrusko

" Predictably, Planned Parenthood cried wolf. “The Board of Health apparently ignored sound science and drafted regulations designed to limit access to safe, legal abortion services,” Planned Parenthood lobbyist Jessica Honke told the newspaper.

What PPFA bemoans, pro-lifers celebrate. For example, the 26-page draft not only includes specific physical requirements for abortion clinics, the draft allows inspectors to make unannounced visits and mandates that emergency care be available. "

http://www.nationalrighttolifenews.org/news/2011/08/virginia-department-of-health-issues-draft-abortion-clinic-regulations/

Victoria Cobb, Top Anti-Abortion Lobbyist In Regulation Debate, Married To Top State Health Official

Laura Bassett
First Posted: 8/30/11

"A prominent anti-abortion lobbyist in Virginia who has been pushing the administration to adopt strict regulations for abortion clinics over the past ten years is married to a top state health official, raising questions in the medical community over what kind of influence she had in the new draft of clinic regulations the state released on Friday.


Victoria Cobb, president of the right-wing Family Foundation of Virginia, has been lobbying state lawmakers for the past decade to pass legislation that would force the Department of Health to release abortion clinic regulations like those adopted by South Carolina in 1996 that reduced the number of clinics in the state from 14 to 3. A number of Republican- and Democratic-controlled assemblies in Virginia have been unable to push this type of legislation through, but this year, anti-abortion Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) signed SB924 into law, which requires all clinics in the state that perform first-trimester abortions to be regulated as hospitals."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/30/virginia-cobb-abortion-clinic-regulation_n_942465.html

Pro-choice advocates say Va. rules politically motivated

By David Sherfinski - The Washington Times
Sunday, August 28, 2011

"Pro-choice groups say recently released draft regulations governing abortion clinics in Virginia would be the most stringent such measures in the country and are part of a politically motivated plot to undermine the rights of women to access abortions.

The Virginia Department of Health on Friday issued the highly anticipated rules after a bill passed during last year’s General Assembly session called on the Board of Health to develop regulations that would require facilities that perform five or more first-trimester abortions per month to meet the same standards for staffing, security, construction and maintenance as hospitals...

[Former governor Tim Kaine], a Catholic, also waded into the fray, saying that abortion is an important moral issue, and that a moral discussion would be warranted — “but we shouldn’t try to criminalize the decisions of women or their health care providers,” he said Friday on WAMU-FM’s “The Politics Hour.”

“I know about this effort,” Mr. Kaine said. “There was this effort under way when I was governor, but the proponents of it are admittedly trying to overturn Roe v. Wade by other means to make it virtually impossible for a woman to make that choice. I oppose it — I think they ought to just be honest about their intentions.” "

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/aug/28/pro-choice-advocates-say-va-rules-politically-moti/

Va. health department releases draft on abortion regulations

By: Hayley Peterson | 08/27/11 8:05 PM
Examiner Staff Writer

"The new rules would be implemented on Jan. 1, pending approval by the 15-member State Board of Health. Eight people serving on the state health board were appointed by Gov. Bob McDonnell, who is against abortions, and six board members were appointed by former Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine. The remaining seat is vacant.

The board plans to vote on the regulations, which were mandated by a Republican-backed bill that passed the General Assembly this year, on Sept. 15 -- after one hour of listening to public testimony.
The public will have no other time period to provide testimony, because the General Assembly is implementing the new rules on an "emergency" basis. Health reforms typically require a two-year implementation period in Virginia.

Abortion advocates say the new regulations are equivalent to outlawing the clinics, because they won't be able to afford the required staffing and facility upgrades.

According to the state's draft language, however, the regulations are intended to "assure the safety of patients who receive first trimester abortion services." "

http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/virginia/2011/08/va-health-department-releases-draft-abortion-regulations

Va. Governor McDonnell Expected to Issue “Emergency” TRAP Regulations Today

by Jodi Jacobson, Editor-in-Chief, RH Reality Check
August 25, 2011

"The catch is this: the McDonnell Administration is bypassing virtually all democratic processes in place for the creation of such regulations. Under the emergency designation, the normal process for public review and comment on regulations, which usually involves several opportunities for expert testimony and public comment and an economic impact assessment among other considerations, has been completely thrown out. Instead, draft regulations will be released tomorrow, and then voted on at a meeting of the Board of Health on September 15th. Instead of any public hearings or comment periods, the Board meeting will be the only time for the public to speak out.  After the board votes on these temporary regulations, they will go to the governor for final approval. Moreover, the McDonnell administration has claimed it has the authority to rewrite without any further notice or input any temporary regulations presented to it for signature.

I’d say that is as close to government by fiat as it gets."

http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2011/08/26/va-governor-mcdonnell-expected-to-issue-emergency-trap-regulations-today/