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!