VA bill would shut down 17 of state's 21 abortion clinics

[niyad]

Virginia Bill Would Shut Down 17 of the State’s 21 Abortion Clinics

February 25, 2011 by Amanda Litman ·

Yesterday, the Virginia legislature passed a bill that will classify and regulate abortion clinics as hospitals, making the state’s laws the most restrictive in the country. Seventeen of the 21 abortion clinics in the state are likely to close under the law, according to NARAL Pro-Choice VA.

RH Reality Check explains that under the law, clinics that perform five or more first-trimester abortions will be subject to hospital standards such as a parking spot for every bed in the clinic–which is ridiculous since first-trimester abortions don’t require an overnight stay—and wider hallways so two gurneys can go through simultaneously. This essentially shuts down most of the state’s clinics, since the cost of making these changes would be impossibly high.

Even the four remaining clinics, all Planned Parenthood facilities, may not be safe from the law. Though they are set up to meet hospital standards, Tarina Keene, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice VA, worries that “this bill is so broad, we don’t know how far they’ll go.”

Such attempts, called “Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers” (TRAP) laws, not only put impossible financial pressure on clinics to meet unnecessary standards, they also paint abortions as risky and dangerous. The reality is that abortion is one of the safest procedures a woman can have—only about 1 in every 300 abortions has complications requiring hospitalization, according to the Guttmacher Institute. In 1997, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that only 3 women died from having legal abortions, compared to 327 who died from pregnancy complications. Regulations like the ones proposed in this bill aren’t needed in abortion clinics, which are already regulated.

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http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/02/25/virginia-bill-would-shut-down-17-of-the-states-21-abortion-clinics/

[musette_sf]

1. K&R

Bring it. I'm just as ready to fight now as I was 40 years ago.

[SammyP]

2. I don't understand

I don't understand why they cant leave the abortion thing alone. Its a personal decision and no one should be telling anyone what they can and cant do with there body's. I do however believe there should be a lower date on when you can get an abortion. The thought women are killing a fetus that could survive on its own at the time in there development is horrific. A women that does that should go to jail.

[Name removed]

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