By Dave Andrusko
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli
All you need to know about how the media is covering the latest twist in Virginia’s attempt to require minimal standards from its abortion clinics is contained in the remarkably biased first sentence of a July 18 UPI story.
It reads, “Virginia’s attorney general refused to certify relaxed rules for abortion clinics, sparking an outcry from activists that he is imposing his ideological will.” Let’s deconstruct these amazingly misleading 23 words.
The attorney general is Ken Cuccinelli. That’s accurate. But what the heck are “relaxed rules for abortion clinics”?
Without going through the entire history—which goes on and on—the gist is that the legislature passed a law that applied to clinics that provide five or more first-trimester abortions a month. In addition to requiring that abortion clinics meet hospital-type standards mandating the size of exam rooms and the width of hallways, the regulations also establish new requirements for inspections, medical procedures and record-keeping.
Pro-abortionists saved most of their hysteria for an ultrasound law, which they savaged as viciously as they did inaccurately. Now it’s time to try to gut the law that took decades to pass.
Under emergency regulations approved by Gov. Bob McDonnell last December, the clinics have been regulated as hospitals (emergency regulations were required under legislation adopted by the General Assembly in 2011). But on a 7-4 vote, taken June 15, the State Board of Health said the regulations should apply only to new abortion clinics!
In other words completely bypassing the intent of the law is, to the UPI, merely “to certify relaxed rules”! Cuccinelli, to his credit, refused to accept these “relaxed rules.”
“Activists”? These are the same people who played the media like a violin when they turned a commonsense requirement (that virtually all abortion clinics were ALREADY doing on their own) into “rape by instrument.”
For whatever reason the state Board of Health grandfathered in all existing abortion clinics. It might have been, perhaps, because of what we heard from WTVR.com a while back. That ‘activists’ were by “bombard[ing] all 15 members of the board of health… with phone calls, e-mails and even personal visits voicing their opposition to the regulations.”
As we reported earlier this week, the ultimate decision rests with Gov. McDonnell, who could accept the regulations or send them back to the board with amendments. The Washington Examiner reported on Tuesday that McDonnell “indicated Monday that he would not support regulations he doesn’t deem faithful to the intent of lawmakers.”
If McDonnell sends back recommended change to the regulations, “the regulations go through another round of public comment, possible revisions by the Department of Health, another vote by the board and a second executive branch review before the regulations become final,” the Associated Press reported.
Kudos to Attorney General Cuccinelli.
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