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Virginia abortion clinic regulations scaled back

Clinics will no longer be required to meet new hospital building standards

The Virginia Board of Health voted on Thursday in favor of scaling back a series of abortion restrictions imposed between 2011 and 2013 on the state’s abortion clinics.

The Board approved easing the measures, 9-6, after reviewing the regulations. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe had issued an executive directive last September to examine the regulations.

By the start of October, four Virginia abortion clinics will have closed since the laws were passed. Seventeen clinics remain open throughout the Commonwealth.

The restrictions included requiring existing abortion facilities to meet the building standards needed for new hospitals, which abortion clinics will now not have to meet.

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring told the Board in May they did not have the legal power to apply the new building standards to the clinics, which existed before the laws were passed.

Hoos for Life President and third-year College student Katharine Britton said she thought the restrictions are necessary to protect the health of women.

“Sometimes it’s been the case that the abortion has been messed up by the abortion clinic and 911 is called, but the EMTs can’t get the stretcher down the hallway to get the woman out,” Britton said. “Things like this are obviously extremely detrimental to women.”

Others, like third-year College student Sam Tobin, the vice president of University Democrats, said the restrictions were politically motivated and had very little to do with concern for women’s health.

“It was a plan hatched by Republicans to shut down abortion providers by putting all these restrictions on them in the name of women’s health that really are doing nothing to benefit the health of women,” Tobin said.

This vote is part of a large fight to remove political interests from the access women have to healthcare, McAuliffe said.

“Today’s vote is an enormous step forward in the fight to get extreme politics out of decisions that should be between women and their doctors,” McAuliffe said in an official statement.

The Board will reconvene for a final vote in a few months after a 60-day public comment period and review by McAuliffe and Herring. Tobin said he was confident both would approve to ease the restrictions.

“This has got to be an opportunity for the majority of us to speak and let the government know that we will not stand for this,” Tobin said. “I believe that the attorney general and governor will do their due diligence and we will all arrive at the conclusion that these restrictions should be eased.”

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