The Virginia Board of Health today took a significant step in the process of watering down abortion center health and safety standards. The move comes several months after The Family Foundation of Virginia won a court-ordered revocation of previous changes made to the standards due to the Board of Health and Commissioner’s illegal actions during Terry McAuliffe’s administration.
In the end, the Board delayed action pending a decision in the Falls Church Medical Center v. Oliver case recently heard in federal district court.
“Once again the politics of abortion is being elevated above the health and safety of women in Virginia,” said Victoria Cobb, President of The Family Foundation. “The $1 billion abortion industry and its defenders on the Board of Health are counting on the courts to do their bidding and free the industry from basic health and safety standards. Of course, the Board would not be in this position had it not violated the law multiple times the last time they attempted to help the abortion industry, as proven by a Henrico Judge’s decision in February. Women who choose to end the life of their unborn child should at the very least be in a facility that meets basic safety standards, but the $1 billion abortion industry opposes even minimum infection prevention standards, inspection of equipment, and record-keeping.”
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In February, Henrico county judge John Marshall announced the court-ordered revocation of changes made to water down abortion industry health and safety standards due to the Board of Health and Commissioner’s illegal actions during Terry McAuliffe’s administration. Because the Board and Department of Health under the direction of former Governor Terry McAuliffe, with advice from Attorney General Mark Herring, violated that law multiple times, the process to water down abortion health and safety standards had to be redone.
Under the current health standards, from 2012 through 2019, health department inspectors documented over a thousand violations, including bloody and unsanitized medical equipment, untrained staff, staff that didn’t wash their hands between patients, violations of federal and state drug regulations – including one facility that didn’t keep records for the dangerous narcotic fentanyl – and dozens of other safety violations.
