Rules for Va. abortion clinics make perfect sense

I was a bit mystified by the July 29 Metro article “Abortion clinics unsure of Va. rules.”

As a former labor and delivery nurse, and a current volunteer at a pro-life pregnancy center, I wondered: To what part of the Board of Health regulations are clinic owners objecting, and why? None of the specifications cited in the article seems excessive for any facility that performs surgery. And make no mistake, abortion is surgery.

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Five-foot-wide corridors are barely adequate to transport a patient on an ambulance stretcher in case of emergency. Hands-free faucets and an EKG machine? These are standard in any operating-room suite. An infection-prevention plan should be second nature to anyone with a “surgical conscience.”

I went to the Virginia Department of Health’s Web site and downloaded the “Emergency Text” of the “Regulations for Licensure of Abortion Facilities.” All the charting, record-keeping, regulations, inspections, policies and procedures seemed familiar to me. Every facility with an operating room should want to have all of them to ensure the safety of its patients.

If the minimum prerequisites for surgical care are news to these clinics, what have they been doing? Isn’t one of the reasons for legalized abortion the provision of standard medical care? Have “back-alley abortions” ever really disappeared?

Rosemary Antunes, Front Royal, Va.