Monday in Richmond, Governor Terry McAuliffe perhaps thought he was doing a real service by ordering a review of Virginia's women’s health center regulations:
“I am concerned that the extreme and punitive regulations adopted last year jeopardize the ability of most women’s health centers to keep their doors open and place in jeopardy the health and reproductive rights of Virginia women,” McAuliffe said.
Cue the string of celebratory tweets from the state’s pro-choice organizations:
We are "proud & thankful" that @GovernorVA stood 4 women's health today & ordered review of dangerous #TRAP regs: http://t.co/sMe20w98Uw
— NARAL Pro-Choice VA (@NARALVirginia) May 12, 2014
Thank you, @GovernorVA, for your continued support of women's health in VA! pic.twitter.com/rC2sHfVIB7
— PPAVirginia (@PPAVirginia) May 12, 2014
Tarina Keene, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia, continued the praise:
“I am absolutely thrilled to see Governor McAuliffe take this bold and critical stand for the women and families of Virginia. These burdensome regulations on women’s health centers were designed to shutter the vast majority of the Commonwealth’s abortion providers – and were enacted over a two-year saga of intimidation, pressure and bullying by former Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. It is past time that these regulations are subject to the objective and evidence-based review they deserve.”
What McAuliffe and these pro-choice groups didn’t take into account, however, is that these “medically unnecessary” regulations have exposed over 300 safety violations in Virginia’s abortion centers. Regardless of whether you’re pro-life or pro-choice, this is a matter of protecting women from unsafe “health” centers rife with bloody and unsterilized equipment and untrained staffs.
These safety standards were put into place for a reason. Hopefully this “unnecessary” review will only confirm that.