AG Cuccinelli declines to support less restrictive regulations for existing abortion clinics

When women’s rights advocates denounced Virginia’s new abortion clinic building regulations as political moves to throw these clinics out of business, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s recent rejection of new and less onerous abortion clinic regulations seemed to confirm their suspicions[1].

Last month, the Virginia Board of Health passed, on a 7-4 vote[2], new abortion clinic regulations that would have “grandfathered” in existing clinics, effectively allowing them to sidestep expensive renovation requirements.

And so the war on women by Virginia’s top Republican Party brass continues in an unveiled effort to undermine all abortion clinics in the commonwealth. As ProgressVA’s executive director, Anna Scholl, pointed out, “The only thing Cuccinelli is advocating for is shutting down women’s health clinics and preventing thousands of Virginia women from accessing safe and legal reproductive health care.”[3]

The question is not whether some Virginia women will have abortions because we know they will.[4] The question is how the state of Virginia can better care for those women who do choose to have abortions. 

Does Virginia essentially force women to have illegal and unsafe abortions or does the state offer some measure of appropriate and legal health care?

This is to say that the claims made by Cuccinelli and Gov. Bob McDonnell to do what’s best for Virginians[5] stand in stark contrast to their attempts to put up unnecessarily restrictive barriers for Virginia women to receive abortions. 

Their first priority, then, doesn’t seem to be the health of Virginia’s women. Instead, their first priority appears to be staying true to their conservative ideologies to maintain the support of their conservative base, even if the price for women in Virginia is steep.

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[1] http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/virginia-politics/2012/jul/17/tdmain01-cuccinelli-wont-certify-abortion-clinic-r-ar-2061882/

[2] http://www.msmagazine.com/news/uswirestory.asp?ID=13718

[3] http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/virginia-politics/2012/jul/17/tdmain01-cuccinelli-wont-certify-abortion-clinic-r-ar-2061882/

[4] http://www.statehealthfacts.org/profileind.jsp?sub=111&rgn=48&cat=10

[5] http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/virginia-politics/2012/jul/11/tdmet01-mcdonnell-wants-more-answers-on-health-car-ar-2048000/