LISTEN TO ROSEMARY CODDING:
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“It’s time to speak out against a small group of zealots, just as Christ did,” said Rosemary Codding, founder of the Falls Church Healthcare Center, a pro-choice women’s center. In written testimony submitted Feb. 17 to the Virginia state Senate’s Education and Health Committee, Codding said, “It is time to commend good abortion care. For thousands of years women all over the world have needed to prevent pregnancy and… birth.”
The anti-choice legislation Codding testified against failed to make it out of committee, yet it was passed by the Virginia General Assembly. A March 2 Washington Post editorial (“Va.’s abortion end run: Mischief, not public health, drives the push for new regulation.”) said, “Republicans in the Virginia General Assembly – with the help of two anti-abortion Democratic state senators – have taken a [less than principled] tack. Through the use of legislative gimmickry – an amendment slipped on to a bill unrelated to abortion – they have pushed through a divisive measure that is unlikely to reduce the number of abortions performed in the commonwealth but which may eventually force some of the state’s 21 abortion clinics to close – if it survives court challenges.”
“This type of legislation is referred to as TRAP laws. Targeted Regulations for Abortion Providers. T-R-A-P,” Codding said last week while sitting in the patient lounge of her clinic. TRAP legislation has been “coming through the Senate or the House in Virginia for probably twenty, twenty five years. They’re always beaten back because they do not ensure safer care for women. But this year, even though they were introduced in the right way and were beaten back again, it was snuck in as a last minute amendment to an already passed nursing home bill. I think that’s what insulted me… it was snuck in without public hearing, without any advance notice, into a bill that is already passed, and a non-germane bill.”
The anti-choice legislation, which Gov. Robert McDonnell (R) has said he will sign, requires abortion providers to be regulated as hospitals. In other states similar legislation has resulted in abortion providers closing their doors: In Texas, providers dropped from 20 to four; in South Carolina they went from 14 to three.
The Washington Post said, “From a legal perspective, it’s hard to see why abortion should be regulated more stringently than other outpatient procedures. First-trimester abortions – the only kind permitted at clinics in Virginia – are extremely safe when performed by trained providers, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which studies sexual and reproductive health issues. If the purpose of additional regulation is to safeguard the mother’s health, as pro-life lawmakers insist it is, why should first-trimester abortions be treated differently from outpatient procedures such as colonoscopies, appendectomies, sterilizations or plastic surgery?”
Once Gov. McDonnell signs the anti-choice legislation, it will fall on Virginia’s Board of Health to determine how the regulations should be implemented. Codding said of the Board of Health, “They’re fair-minded. They’re professional. They’re medical-based. They understand these things and I trust in them and pray each day that their wisdom and professionalism will [prevail].”
The Washington Post said, “The Board of Health, whose members serve four-year terms, is dominated by appointees of former governor Timothy M. Kaine (D). Mr. Kaine, a practicing Catholic, opposed abortion, but he was also a foe of incendiary bills like the legislation just passed in Richmond, which he rightly considered an act of grandstanding likely to result in litigation. Board members, not all of whom are thrilled with the idea of putting out of business any of Virginia’s abortion clinics, will be presented with draft regulations by state health officials, who tend to be professional and non-ideological; but the board members are also advised by lawyers designated by the state’s attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli II, a hard-line conservative and opponent of abortion.”
Codding sees broader political participation as the best way to defend against future anti-choice efforts. “In this last General Assembly election in Virginia… we had approximately 13 percent of registered voters come out and vote,” and registered voters don’t even “represent all of those who could have voted,” said Codding. “That means that maybe 8 percent designed the composition of the state Senate and the state legislature, and that is the state legislature that snuck this in.”
Related Links:
www.fallschurchhealthcare.com <http://www.fallschurchhealthcare.com/>