Crossposted at ProgressVA.
Yesterday, ProgressVA reported on how Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli will even further politicize his office by refusing to step down while running for in the Republican primary for Governor of Virginia. Today there is a prime example of how he has been doing it already.
The Virginia Coalition to Protect Women’s Health, which ProgressVA supports, called out Cuccinelli for using the office of the Attorney General to influence the regulatory process of women’s health clinics in order to, in effect, end a woman’s right to choose and access to safe and legal abortion services in the Commonwealth. The Coalition states,
“As a coalition of women’s health providers and advocates, we are shocked at the degree to which the McDonnell administration has chosen to ignore the recommendations of medical experts to push its own politicized agenda.
“Politics – not public health – is the driving force behind the regulations, which are clearly part of an unprecedented political campaign at the state and federal levels to undermine women’s access to safe, legal reproductive health care services.
“We are truly dismayed to learn of the state’s hypocrisy in convening a panel of medical professionals, and then rejecting their advice when it didn’t advance the state’s goal of shutting down abortion providers. Not only does this demonstrate that the Attorney General’s office has no regard for women’s constitutional right to reproductive choice, but it also shows disdain for the rulemaking process and disrespect for medical professionals who volunteered their time and expertise to uphold patient health.”
The Coalition is speaking out against the regulations today at a State Board of Health meeting in Richmond. As a result of Cuccinelli politicizing the process that resulted in the restrictive regulations, the Coalition is calling on Governor McDonnell to reject them. Virginians deserve regulations that genuinely prioritized the health of Virginia’s women, and that are not influenced by the ideological beliefs of Ken Cuccinelli.
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