Hospitals; design & construction standards for certain facilities in which abortions are performed. (SB1116)

Introduced By

Sen. Mark Herring (D-Leesburg)

Progress

Introduced
Passed Committee
Passed House
Passed Senate
Signed by Governor
Became Law

Description

Design and construction standards for certain facilities. Provides that regulations of the Board of Health for the construction, maintenance, operation, staffing, and equipping of hospitals shall apply to facilities in which five or more first trimester abortions per month are performed only when the design or construction of such facility is initiated after July 1, 2013. This bill includes an emergency clause. Read the Bill »

Status

01/17/2013: Failed to Pass in Committee

History

DateAction
01/09/2013Prefiled and ordered printed with emergency clause; offered 01/09/13
01/09/2013Prefiled and ordered printed with emergency clause; offered 01/09/13 13102043D
01/09/2013Referred to Committee on Education and Health
01/17/2013Passed by indefinitely in Education and Health (8-Y 7-N) (see vote tally)

Comments

ACLU-VA Women's Rights and Reproductive Freedom, tracking this bill in Photosynthesis, notes:

The ACLU of Virginia supports this bill because it "grandfathers in" existing women's health care facilities that provide abortion care, rather than apply unnecessary and burdensome architectural requirements on to exiting facilities, as is currently required under the ongoing process for new regulations of women's health care centers. Women’s health centers in Virginia have been providing safe, accessible, comprehensive reproductive health care for almost forty years. Abortion care is one of the safest surgical procedures available in the United States today. The new, proposed regulations for these centers single out the health care professionals who provide abortion care, and the patients who seek abortion care, for arbitrary and burdensome restrictions, that have nothing to do with the safe delivery of services for women and everything to do with legislators’ efforts to deny women access to reproductive health care. The proposed permanent new regulations for women's health centers require existing centers to come into compliance with three chapters of a manual called the 2010 Guidelines for Design and Construction of Health Care Facilities within the next two years. However, these Guidelines are intended to apply only to new construction, not to existing facilities, and this is how they are applied to every other health care facility in Virginia. These extensive, burdensome construction requirements have no relation to the safety of the services that women’s health centers provide.