RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe made it known on the campaign trail last year that he supported legalized abortion and that he opposed his state’s new regulations governing abortion facilities’ building codes and safety standards.

On May 12, in a nod to pro-abortion organizations that supported his campaign, such as NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia and Planned Parenthood, McAuliffe, a former Democratic National Democratic Committee chairman, announced he was appointing five new members to the Virginia Board of Health, whom he said “share his commitment to women’s health” and who agree that the abortion-business regulations need to be reviewed.

“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,” said McAuliffe.

McAuliffe, a former fundraiser and campaign director for Bill and Hillary Clinton, also announced that the Virginia Department of Health would be signing a “memorandum of agreement” with the state’s four Planned Parenthood affiliates to provide free HIV screening to more than 1,800 men and women by the end of the year.

“We’re definitely alarmed by the preference that Planned Parenthood is receiving,” said Virginia Podboy, the associate director of the Virginia Catholic Conference.

Olivia Gans, the president of the Virginia Society for Human Life, an affiliate of National Right to Life, also told the Register that McAuliffe’s recent moves to undermine the abortion-facility regulations show that “elections have consequences.”

“He’s definitely at this moment keeping his campaign promises to the abortion lobby that helped elect him,” Gans said.

In prepared remarks, McAuliffe — a Catholic who drew attention to his faith on his Facebook campaign website — sought to frame the issue as a health and economic matter, arguing that Virginia had to be “open and welcoming to all” in order to grow and diversify its economy.

“And we need to ensure that all Virginia women have access to the health care they need,” McAuliffe said.

However, Virginia’s two Catholic bishops — Bishop Francis DiLorenzo of Richmond and Bishop Paul Loverde of Arlington — in a joint statement disputed the notion that abortion is health care or that regulating abortion facilities harms the state’s economy.

“While we hear that these regulations are onerous and expensive,” the bishops said, “we believe all women deserve nothing less. Regardless of the cost to abortion centers to implement these regulations, women’s safety should be of paramount importance.”

 

History of Violations

In April 2013, the Virginia Board of Health voted to implement health-and-safety regulations on the state’s abortion businesses. The regulations are intended to prevent the facilities from subjecting women to unsanitary conditions, including physicians performing abortions with unwashed hands or blood being splattered on examination tables and medical trays.

In 2012, the Virginia Department of Health said it found numerous health-code violations at the state’s 20 abortion centers — two have since closed — that included blood-stained examination tables, expired medications and no policies for hygiene and equipment cleanliness. One site performed abortions on two young teenage girls without their parents’ consent. In another business, which was located in a building’s second floor, the lack of an elevator made it difficult for emergency medical technicians to retrieve women in need of emergency care.

Podboy told the Register that the inspections were made possible by the 2011 state law that created the regulations. Prior to the law, Podboy said, abortion facilities were enveloped by a shroud of secrecy. Only occasionally would sidewalk counselors hear of some of the problematic conditions.

“It was very difficult to get information about them,” Podboy said. “The regulations have allowed independent inspectors from the Virginia Department of Health to go in and evaluate these facilities. It’s pretty appalling to see what these regulations have allowed us to see.”

 

Building-Code Requirements

However, McAuliffe and his supporters have focused the public debate on the law’s requirement that abortion facilities comply with strict, expensive hospital-style building codes, such as widening hallways and adding parking spaces. After the regulations were finalized last year, businesses were given until as late as the end of this October, depending on when they were inspected, to make the necessary building modifications.

In June 2012, the Virginia Board of Health voted to exempt the abortion facilities from the building codes, but the board later changed its vote that September, after then-Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said the board lacked the authority to grandfather the facilities. Cuccinelli, a Republican, lost to McAuliffe in the 2013 gubernatorial election.

Several critics of the regulations argued the building codes would force several abortion centers to close their doors because of the related expenses. Last summer, a Northern Virginia abortion business filed a lawsuit against the regulations. The lawsuit, which is still pending, alleges the regulations are unnecessary and resulted from a “legally flawed process” that failed to consider the impact the regulations would have on small businesses.

However, Gans, of Virginia Society for Human Life, doubted that Virginians will see many abortion facilities shutting their doors.

“Abortion is their business,” she said. “They will find a way to stay in business.”

Podboy said the law’s health-and-safety requirements are “common sense,” and she noted that the full force of the regulations have not yet gone into effect.

“Let’s first see how these work, and let’s see if some of these facilities will comply and what difference it will make for Virginia women. This is all still very premature,” said Podboy, who added that the Virginia Catholic Conference is “strongly discouraging” the Virginia Board of Health from conducting a review of the regulations.

 

Planned Parenthood Partnership

Podboy said the conference is also analyzing the possible impact of McAuliffe’s initiatives to partner with Planned Parenthood for HIV/AIDS screening and his directive that the Virginia health commissioner register and enroll the state’s eligible women’s health facilities in the 340B Drug Pricing Program, which allows facilities to obtain pharmaceutical drugs from manufacturers at a discount.

Podboy said the Virginia Catholic Conference is concerned about contraception and abortifacients being covered under the program. She also said the conference opposes Planned Parenthood being given any preference for state contracts.

“We want Planned Parenthood to receive as little state funding as possible, preferably none,” Podboy said.

The 15-member Virginia Board of Health is not required to review the regulations. The board is expected to vote on whether to follow McAuliffe’s request at its next public meeting on June 5.

In his recent appointments to the health board, McAuliffe filled one vacancy with a former board member who had spoken out against the regulations. The four other new members are replacing people whose terms are expiring. McAuliffe said they support his plan to review the regulations, and he added that he has a “right and a responsibility to have reasonable people of my own choosing for that review.”

“At the end of the day, the governor has the capacity to stack the deck,” Gans said. “Even if the current board doesn’t do the review, a new board could, and there is no doubt in my mind that the governor will appoint individuals who are strongly pro-abortion and will pursue that agenda.”

 

Women’s Health-and-Safety Issue

Virginia’s Catholic bishops said that abortion, since it “operates under the guise of health care,” must be properly regulated for the safety of women.

“We will continue to work to ensure that when women tragically turn to abortion centers they don’t also jeopardize their own lives,” the bishops said. “As Virginia’s Catholic bishops, whose faith centers on the dignity of all human life, we urge the governor to ensure that this review focuses on the paramount importance of Virginia women’s health and safety.”

Register correspondent Brian Fraga writes from Fall River, Massachusetts.