Posts tagged virginia
married to trouble
How did your brain even learn human speech? I'm just so curious.
Tweet of the day.
And if Romney wins Ohio and Oklahoma, OH … OK.
(via rabbleprochoice)
“Virginia Gov. McDonnell (R) just forced state health board to shut down ALL abortion clinics!” (Daily Kos 2012)
FRI SEP 14, 2012 AT 06:34 PM PDT
Rachel Maddow just reported on this. Under pressure from Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell (R) and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R), the state Board of Health reversed their prior ruling and applied a new trap law designed to shut down every single abortion clinic in the entire state.
Under pressure from Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the Virginia Board of Health voted on Friday to pass a set of building regulations that could force many abortion clinics in the state to shut down.Opponents of the regulations, which include minimum hallway widths, specific ventilation systems and covered entrances, argue that they are medically unnecessary and meant for the construction of new hospitals — not as regulations for existing outpatient abortion clinics. None of the 20 clinics in the state that are applying for a new license currently meet the requirements, and in order to come into compliance in the allotted two-year time period they would have to undergo costly, extensive renovations.
The board voted to pass the regulations in June along with an amendment that would have grandfathered in existing clinics. But Cuccinelli refused to certify the version the board passed and told members that adopting such an amendment was outside their scope of power. He said the legislation that directed the board to regulate abortion clinics as hospitals, sponsored by Del. Kathy Byron (R-Lynchburg), did not intend for existing clinics to be exempt. The legislation called for the board to pass regulations on building specifics.
More from the Washington Post.
This is the anti-choicers’ new MO - instead of attacking Roe v. Wade, they gut health care funding and shut down clinics by any means possible.
Many of the abortion providers in Virginia also offer other general and reproductive health care services, including some who also offer a sliding fee scale for those who can’t afford regularly-priced health care. Is Virginia equipped to deal with the demand for these crucial services if they shut the clinics down? I doubt it.
There’s still time. If McDonnell and Cuccinelli (both Republican cis men - where have I heard that before?) both sign off on the regulations, there will still be a public comment period before the board votes next year.
Virginians, you know what to do.
(Source: dailykos.com, via rabbleprochoice)
Thoughts on Virginia’s Vaginal Probe Law.
I’ve been reading up on this quite a bit due to a Facebook scuffle I saw yesterday were a woman who claimed to be pro-choice was defending the law, saying it wasn’t a big deal and didn’t understand why everyone was so pissed.
I was looking at a discussion on reddit, when I came across the following two comments on the story by someone with the user name “leylanna”
I was literally raped by a woman with one of these things. She assumed I was a loose whore because I was getting an abortion. When I cried for her to stop she literally asked me why I was crying. I can only imagine how many other women will be treated this way by overworked technicians who despise the new laws.
and
And that is what I could see happening over and over again. The worst part is that I was so distraught over everything I did t have the energy or strength to really do something about it and now years later it’s too late. That’s why this is so bad. The emotions with it all are not easy to deal with. So when something horrible happens on top of it, I doubt most woman would do anything about it. If they did they would have to publicly admit they had an abortion. What a fucked up situation and social stigma it really is.
This isn’t an angle I hadn’t fully considered before. I figured all these required pre-abortion ultrasound procedures were a way to make the person considering an abortion feel guilty and changed their mind. I figured that an intrusive, invasive procedure like this being required was another way to discourage getting an abortion.
But more than that, I’ve been reading about people who have had this procedure done, and it turns out it sounds more horrifying than I had imagined it.
The vagina is spread apart and distended with a speculum, the probe is then inserted and moved around to obtain a high resolution image.
One of these things:
There is no necessity for this procedure, if they want a pre-abortion ultrasound done, they could easily have done it with a device that can be put on the belly.
I have four children, one were there were even complications with the pregnancy and my ex-wife NEVER had one of these used on her. The resolution on the “regular” ultrasound device was plenty high enough to produce pictures the doctors could use to determine the health of the fetus.
This can’t be constitutional. I don’t understand how the government can sanction having to have a phallic shaped device needlessly inserted into someone’s vagina in order to get a medical procedure done.
What about young children who became pregnant due to rape or incest? They are going to be further traumatized, hell not just young children, adults too.
Even in cases where rape was not involved and it was an unwanted/unexpected pregnancy, this adds another level of shame, and potentially a layer of trauma.
This is nothing more than punishment. Just like they want those who become pregnant to be punished for having sex by the result being a pregnancy, they want to punish those seeking an abortion by having a doctor shove a phallic shaped device into their vagina and moving it around to get a picture.
Don’t believe me?
That measure was not added to the bill, also one Republican, Todd Gilbert, called abortions “matters of lifestyle convenience.”
Republicans in Virginia, I’m disgusted with you. You are filthy disgusting people, your “pro-life” rhetoric veils your true intentions so thinly.
Try to envision the mindset of a legislator who would enact a bill the sole purpose of which is to mandate the forcible, medically unnecessary invasion of a woman’s vagina as the price — the attempt at forced shame — for terminating a pregnancy. Whatever a person’s views on abortion might be, this is an assault of a different order. It is one thing to believe that abortion should be restricted; it is quite another to use the law to impose humiliation and invasion upon women who seek out the procedure. A person cannot enact such a law without embracing a willful disregard for the personhood and dignity of all women.
(via lagertha-lodbrok)
41 notes &
Rick Perry didn’t meet the required 10,000 votes for Virginia’s primary ballot. His next step… sue the Commonwealth of Virginia
by Greg Webb | Injuryboard Blog Network
Presidential candidate Rick Perry of Texas, who continually touts his record in Texas for taking away his citizens’ rights to sue for harms done to them (“tort reform” measures like capping awards for medical malpractice and other personal injuries), seems to think it is OK to sue the Commonwealth of Virginia . Mr. Perry found Virginia’s requirement that a Presidential candidate obtain 10,000 signatures before being placed on a primary ballot to be too “onerous” and “problematic”
omfipu what a frikkin child
Even if he weren’t a homophobic religious lunatic bigoted douchenozzle I wouldn’t want him to be president.
47 notes &
New Virginia Abortion Regulations Could Shut Down All State Clinics
Abortion clinics in Virginia are going to have to undergo major renovations or risk getting shut down according to new regulations passed by the Virginia Board of Health. The Huffington Post has a good break down of some of the unnecessarily persnickety new requirements:
A clinic must have 5-foot-wide hallways, 8-foot-wide areas outside of procedure rooms, specific numbers of toilets and types of sinks and all of the latest requirements for air circulation flow and electrical wiring. Each clinic must also have a parking spot for every bed, despite the fact that first-trimester abortions don’t require an overnight stay. Further, Department of Health employees will be allowed to enter an abortion facility at any time without notice or identification.
However, another state official—Republican delegate Bob Marshall—basically admitted to the Washington Post in a letter from earlier this month that the regulations were motivated by anti-abortion sentiment: Republican State Sen. Ryan McDougle claims that the new regulations are supposed to “to make sure that all medical procedures are done in a safe manner. “As to critics who question our motives,” Marshall wrote in a letter with medical director Marie Anderson, “We openly profess that all children before birth have the same inalienable right to life as persons who are born.” As HuffPo points out, the losers in all of this will be women. Not just the ones who need abortions, but the ones who need contraception, breast exams and pap smears.
If all five Planned Parenthoods in the state are shut down, where will they go?
SIGNAL BOOST PLEASE YOU ALL. I LIVE IN VIRGINIA, AND THIS IS SOME SERIOUS SHIT.
Children before birth? REALLY? You have some really stupid legislators in the state of Virginia.
Signal boost for the people of Virginia who depend on Planned Parenthood.
43 notes &
Are Virginia's New Abortion Rules the Worst Yet? || Mother Jones
On Friday evening, Virginia’s Department of Health issued a strict new set of rules for abortion clinics—and women’s health advocates fear that facilities that can’t comply could be shuttered.
The regulations require Virginia’s 22 clinics to meet strict new physical standards; pre-op rooms, for example, must measure at least 80 square feet, and operating rooms must measure 250 square feet. Hallways must be at least five feet wide. The requirements are based on the state’s 2010 guidelines for new outpatient surgical facilities.
There is a damn good chance that most, if not all, of Virginia’s abortion clinics will be closed. Retro-fits are likely to be prohibitively expensive, and most clinics weren’t built with these standards in mind.
Tarina Keene, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia, told Mother Jones on Monday that the new rules may actually be the most strict regulations in the United States. “It would be challenging for the majority of our facilities to continue offering first-trimester care,” Keene said. “These are designed to really cease first-trimester abortion services in the Commonwealth of Virginia.”
The president of Washington, D.C.’s Planned Parenthood chapter has already told theWashington Post that she doesn’t believe that a clinic in Falls Church, Virginia, will be able to meet all of those requirements. Keene said that many other clinics in the state won’t be able to meet them, either—which she thinks is exactly the reason the Department of Health wrote them that way. “There’s no doubt in my mind that this is an attack on Roe,” said Keene. “You can ban abortion by making it inaccessible.”
Supporters of these new regulations suggest that the regulations are necessary to keep women safe (who can argue with safety?), but 1st trimester abortions are safe. This is a political attempt to subvert Roe v. Wade. Period.
Virginia isn’t the first to release a set of rules like this. Abortion rights advocates often refer to them as TRAP (“targeted regulation of abortion providers”) laws. Kansas got a got a good deal of attention in June when it released new rules that would have shut down all but one clinic in the state. A judge blocked those rules from taking effect, but the court battle over them continues.
Abortion rights advocates argue that the rules aren’t necessary; first-trimester abortions can and are performed safely in doctors’ offices like other outpatient services (for example, vasectomies). “These laws have nothing to do with improving patient outcomes and everything to do with making it more difficult to provide abortion services,” said Elizabeth Nash, a public policy associate with the Guttmacher Institute.
The Virginia rules come after the state legislature passed a law back in February that reclassified abortion clinics as hospitals. The law directed the state board of health to establish new rules specifically for abortion clinics, and because it was passed as “emergency” legislation, the state was expected to have them put in place within 280 days.
The rules released on Friday are the draft version; the board is slated to vote on the rules at a public meeting on September 15. After that, Gov. Bob McDonnell must sign them into law, which he is expected to do before the end of the year. Since these are emergency regulations, the board would then have to draft the permanent regulations, a process expected to take 12 to 18 months. Abortion rights advocates worry, though, that the emergency regulations could force clinics to shut down in the interim.
Again, if you’re in Virginia, or know people in Virginia, visit The Virginia Coalition to Protect Women’s Health website to learn how to get involved.
(via propaganda-for-life)
