The state of Virginia has common-sense restrictions regarding abortion — but even laws that make abortion less dangerous for the mother are too restrictive for the industry. Planned Parenthood, along with Whole Woman’s Health — an abortion chain with a long history of health and safety violations — sued the state of Virginia, looking to have those restrictions overturned — including requiring abortion facilities to meet surgical building standards, ensuring that only doctors commit abortions, and requiring that surgical abortions be committed in hospitals, instead of standalone facilities. Also required are an ultrasound, with the option for the mother to see her baby before making any decisions. Pro-lifers were concerned that Virginia’s attorney general, Democrat Mark Herring, would refuse to fight for the state. Thankfully, Herring chose to defend the law, and filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Yet his objection to the lawsuit wasn’t as stringent as some might have hoped.
In the motion, which Herring filed last week, he cited what he called Planned Parenthood’s “powerful arguments,” but merely argued that the court is not the place to fight the abortion restrictions. “Many of the challenged laws are decades old, some of the challenged regulations are under active review, and plaintiffs make powerful arguments that certain other requirements warrant reconsideration by the Virginia General Assembly,” he wrote in the motion. “But a federal courtroom is not the proper venue for debating the wisdom of these policies.”
READ: Gallup poll: Majority of Americans want more abortion restrictions
Of course, Herring did not mention why these regulations are necessary — or that Governor Terry McAuliffe, also a Democrat and former chair of the Democratic National Committee, has already worked to overturn some of them, after promising to be a “brick wall” against any restrictions on abortion.
Neither McAuliffe nor Herring acknowledged that Virginia’s abortion facilities have uniformly been found to be in disgusting condition, with every single facility inspected found to have major violations. Over 80 violations were found among nine facilities, with employees not knowing which instruments were clean and which had been used, expired drugs kept in the facility, and one facility even found with freezer filled with blood that had spilled out and frozen, along with frozen remains of aborted babies. These were the conditions in the facilities when they knew the inspections were coming — which causes one to wonder what the typical condition of the facilities is like. Whole Woman’s Health, which has fought these regulations in Texas and now, again, in Virginia, has been found to use rusty instruments and expired medication.
Abortion advocates also often decry ultrasound laws, but do not admit that ultrasounds are actually a routine part of the abortion process, and are, in fact, medically necessary. An abortionist needs to give the mother an ultrasound to determine how far along in the pregnancy she is, and to determine whether the baby is growing outside the womb. For an abortionist to operate without knowing this vital information would be extraordinarily dangerous for the mother — and yet pro-choice advocates frequently fight these requirements. Virginia’s law also mandates that the mother be given the opportunity to see her baby, something else that is necessary, as the abortion industry has a tendency to lie to women and refuse them the right to see their baby.
We’re told that women need to have access to legal abortion to keep from being harmed in dangerous procedures, yet abortion activists also fight against the very regulations that make it less dangerous for women — and legal abortion is still killing and harming women.
Most Americans support significant restrictions on abortion… and women deserve better than what this profitable industry has to offer.
