In Virginia, the latest effort to circumvent Roe v. Wade and popular opinion on abortion comes from the state's renegade attorney general Ken Cuccinelli. He issued an opinion saying the state has legal authority to require abortion providers to meet the same standards hospitals do. Though the opinion is not legally binding and the Board of Health can decide how to implement the decision, it's clear that Cuccinelli is acting because he was unable to get similar legislation through the state's Assembly. Abortion-rights advocates say this imposes unnecessarily tough standards on clinics that provide abortions in the first trimester -- later abortions are performed in hospitals -- and could drive some out of business.
Gov. Bob McDonnell Del. Robert G. Marshall urged the governor and the Board of Health to enact the regulations, framing it as a women's health issue. :
'This is a victory for women and children across Virginia,' Marshall said Monday. 'We should do everything possible to ensure that every woman's life and health and their future pregnancies are protected by the Commonwealth of Virginia. To do otherwise is to shirk from government's first responsibility.'
It would be nice if we could count on our unbiased press corps to point out that, in fact, abortions in the United States are remarkably safe. Fewer than 0.3 percent experience complications, and studies have repeatedly found no health effects, according to the Guttmacher Institute. That doesn't stop politicians from resorting to making specious health claims when they can't otherwise get their way. The irony, of course, is that in a world without legal abortion, which is what they really want, more women would die. Illegal abortion means unsafe abortion, and demand for abortion falls most when it's broadly legal. In the meantime, we have people like Cuccinelli, who don't understand a public-health triumph when they see one.
-- Monica Potts
