Covering Up the Real War on Women
Tell me which of these sounds like a chapter from a “war on women” playbook:
- Protecting businesses from following regular health and safety standards - because those businesses almost exclusively provide services to women
- Allowing abortion businesses to ignore health and safety standards which protect women’s health
- Allowing people who profit from illegally dispensing potentially dangerous drugs like Oxycontin to women to be exempt from prosecution or enforced regulation
- Protecting rapists and molesters of young women by allowing clinic inspectors to ignore laws which mandate reporting the pregnancy of a 13 or 14 year old girl
To be honest, if you asked me, I’d put a check in the box next to all of the above to indicate this is a real and dangerous double standard. There is a “war on women” happening in Virginia, conducted by those who are willing to exploit women for political gain; a war led by Governor Terry McAuliffe, Attorney General Mark Herring, and their accomplices in the abortion industry.
In 2012, the General Assembly passed requirements for abortion clinics in Virginia designed to bring them into compliance with the same standards that other medical facilities have to adhere to.
After the Department of Health balked at enforcing the law on existing clinics, then Attorney General Cuccinelli opined that the intent of the law was clear, and that it demanded that all clinics meet these standards. The Board of Health voted 13 to 2 in agreement.
However, Governor McAuliffe seems to consider it his job to use his office to undermine these requirements instead of upholding them. On taking office, he’s requested that the regulations be reviewed and changed if possible; not because they aren’t in step with the law (they are), but because he feels that the law was passed out of political motivation.
In the meanwhile, the abortion industry continues to churn out very real horror stories, with substandard procedures that make your skin crawl. Department of Health inspections show filthy operating conditions, sloppy procedures, employees working without background checks, medication being dispensed improperly...the list goes on and on. Many clinics with pages and pages of violations to their name are simply petitioning the Department of Health for a waiver to avoid having to correct their shortcomings, something McAuliffe’s team will probably be all too happy to grant.
Attorney General Herring’s contributions thus far aren’t exactly helping. Only a few weeks ago he issued a ruling contradicting two previous AG opinions to say that abortion clinic workers do not have to report statutory rapes of teenage girls who arrive at clinics pregnant. Punishing rapists and protecting young victims isn’t on Herring’s agenda - keeping clinics free to operate with sub-standard conditions is, though.
One of the reasons I love Virginia is that, by and large, the people of our Commonwealth still cling fast to basic standards of decency and common sense. We punish rape, because it’s despicable. We don’t allow drugs to be handed out to strangers on the street, and we don’t accept the hypocrisy of allowing those same drugs to be handed out illegally just because it’s happening in an abortion clinic. We don’t make meaningless exceptions to health standards just because doing so would favor a particular business at the expense of the women that go there for help.
I’ve already contacted the Family Foundation and the Virginia Society for Human Life to see what can be done this coming session of the legislature to protect Virginians. Not just the unborn, but the vulnerable women (young and old) who go to these clinics expecting professional help.
People I talk to about this agree it’s not fair to women to turn a blind eye to these egregious breaches of public trust. Please let me know what you think about this and remember as November 4th, Election Day, approaches, ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES!