On Friday, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli issued a legal opinion that allows the state to impose stricter guidelines on clinics that offer abortions.
“The state has long regulated outpatient surgical facilities and personnel to ensure a certain level of protection for patients. There is no reason to hold facilities providing abortion services to any lesser standard for their patients. Even pharmacies, funeral homes, and veterinary clinics are regulated by the state,” according to an official statement on the opinion. “The attorney general’s official opinions do not create new law. Instead, the opinions represent the attorney general’s analysis of the current state of the law based on his thorough review of existing law and relevant prior court decisions.”
His opinion seems to suggest that state’s Board of Health will have the ability to impose new regulations on abortion clinics requiring the same standards as hospitals and surgery centers.
“Currently, doctors working at a clinic must be licensed by the state Board of Medicine, but clinics themselves handling abortions in the first trimester are considered ‘physicians offices,’ places where some surgical procedures may be performed, such as a plastic surgeon’s office. Abortions after the first trimester must be performed in licensed hospitals,” wrote Jim Nolan of the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
According to a Washington Post editorial, Cuccinelli’s legal opinion “opens the door for a more rigorous regulatory framework that could force clinics, among other things, to adopt expensive structural changes that abortion advocates say are unnecessary and could put many out of business.”
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