Critics: Cuccinelli opinion could shutter local abortion clinic

One of the two clinics that perform abortions in Albemarle County might have little choice but to close if the state implements regulations authorized by Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, critics say.

The Charlottesville Medical Center for Women on Commonwealth Drive is one of up to 17 clinics in Virginia possibly at risk of closing if stiffer regulations are enacted, said Tarina Keene, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia.

“I would assume [it would have to close] because it is one of 17 facilities that would probably not meet these new standards,” Keene said.

A call to the Charlottesville Medical Center for Women was not returned.

Cuccinelli, a Republican, issued an opinion Friday that says Virginia’s Board of Health has the authority to impose additional regulations on the state’s 21 abortion clinics.

“The state has long regulated outpatient surgical facilities and personnel to ensure a certain level of protection for patients,” Cuccinelli’s spokesman, Brian J. Gottstein, said in a statement. “There is no reason to hold facilities providing abortion services to any lesser standard for their patients. Even pharmacies, funeral homes and veterinary clinics are regulated by the state.”

Del. Bob Marshall, a Republican from Prince William County, was one of two lawmakers who asked Cuccinelli for the official opinion about regulation of abortion clinics. Marshall said the regulations are not meant to close down abortion clinics but are simply meant to hold them to a standard that will ensure the abortions are performed in a manner that minimizes the risk to the mother.

“This is not a plot from the Vatican,” he said.

The Charlottesville area’s other clinic that offers abortion services, the Planned Parenthood on Hydraulic Road, would likely not have to close under the possible stricter regulations.

David Nova, vice president for Planned Parenthood Health Systems Inc., said the Charlottesville facility was built in 2004 to the specifications of an outpatient hospital. As a result, he said, it would not require expensive upgrades or renovations under more rigorous state regulations.

“It is not an outpatient hospital, but it was built with the architectural specifications of an outpatient hospital,” Nova said.

Planned Parenthood, Nova added, is not opposed to state regulations that ensure abortions are performed in the safest manner possible. The organization does, however, object to regulations aimed at closing down clinics and reducing access to abortion services.

Some members of the General Assembly, including Marshall, have sought over the past decade to pass legislation that would boost regulation of abortion clinics and hold them to the same standards as full-sized hospitals and surgery centers.

While Cuccinelli did not endorse any specific regulations, abortion-rights advocates say they expect the new rules to be similar to those bills that previously failed in the General Assembly.

Such regulations would be too expensive to implement, would cause many clinics to close and would greatly restrict access to abortion services across Virginia, the critics say.

“These are onerous requirements that are basically just trying to shut these facilities down,” Keene said.

Under the current system, clinics that perform abortions in the first trimester are often considered physicians’ offices, in which certain surgical procedures are permitted. Later term abortions may only be performed in licensed hospitals.

Keene and other abortion-rights advocates view Cuccinelli’s legal opinion as an attempt to circumvent the General Assembly and enact the regulations on abortion clinics that lawmakers have repeatedly failed to approve.

Gottstein, however, said Cuccinelli’s opinion is based on a “thorough review of existing law and relevant prior court decisions.”

He cited a decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Greenville Women’s Clinic v. Bryant that found that state regulations that “do not interfere with the woman’s status as the ultimate decisionmaker, that serve ‘a valid purpose,’ and that do not ‘strike at the [abortion] right itself’ are valid regulations.”