The following video is from the Manassas City Council meeting on Monday, March 16, in which dozens of speakers expressed their opinions about zoning requirements for women’s health and reproductive clinics in Manassas City. Among the speakers was our old friend Del. “Sideshow Bob” Marshall (R-Manassas), who claimed that women’s health and reproductive clinics should be treated more harshly than other medical facilities, because “no other business routinely leaves half of the persons who enter the premises unable to leave.” Marshall also claimed that harassment of women’s health clinics by anti-abortion protestors reflects “established rights and legitimate concerns of communities,” and justifies regulating women’s health clinics more strictly. Seriously. Yeah, I know, the guy’s an extremist, but still…
For his part, Democratic State Senate candidate Atif Qarni, who barely lost an election to “Sideshow Bob” in 2013, argued (correctly) that blatantly “attack[ing] women’s health clinics and “suppress women’s rights” is “not good for business.” Instead, Qarni asserted (again correctly) that Manassas City should be working to create an open and welcoming culture of the city.”
P.S. See the “flip” for video of Progress Virginia’s Brian Devine, who argued that the “current zoning update is still an attack on women’s health, same as it was in January of last year.” Devine further argued that singling out women’s health clinics for stricter zoning treatment is “discriminatory towards women’s health centers that provide crucial preventitive care, birth control, STD and cancer screenings, and safe and legal abortion.” Devine urged that “Manassas zoning regulations be based on science and prioritize medicine over politics,” but sadly, “today they still are not.”
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