Virginia Governor McDonnell’s Anti-Woman Crusade

Update: The Virginia Board of Health caved under intense political pressure from the state’s governor and attorney general this afternoon. The panel voted to require existing reproductive health care providers to comply with new hospital constructionstandards—a dramatic departure from its earlier decision to allow the clinics to continue providing care in their current facilities.

It’s not too late to take action and tell Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell to stop his anti-woman crusade and drop these harmful regulations.

Virginia’s anti-choice legislators insist on pushing laws that clearly trample on women’s rights and either humiliate them or deprive them of the medical services that they need.

Earlier this year, they championed the demeaning “transvaginal probe law.”

Now, Virginia’s Governor Bob McDonnell and his anti-choice cronies are backing outrageous new regulations for abortion providers that are impractical, serve absolutely no medical purpose-and ultimately threaten to close clinics down or will force them to rebuild from the ground up.

This Friday, the Virginia Board of Health is being asked to vote on the regulations for a second time-even though the panel already rejected these rules because they were unrealistic and medically unnecessary. The Governor and the rest of the executive branch are acting like the past never happened though, and continue to try to strong-arm the board into advancing these arbitrary regulations.

Among other things, the regulations would force existing reproductive health care facilities to meet architectural standards designed for new hospitals.  This makes no medical or logical sense at all, and it would require providers in the state to undergo massive construction or renovations. Hospitals aren’t even required to meet standards this tough.

Virginia abortion providers have been safely caring for women for decades. But it’s clear that Gov. McDonnell and others are less concerned with women’s health than with imposing harsh rules aimed at shutting clinics down.

The Center for Reproductive Rights has been actively fighting against these regulations, but we need your help.

Send Gov. McDonnell a message demanding that he and his anti-choice cronies stop their crusade against women in Virginia and abandon their efforts to adopt these dangerous regulations.

——————————————-