Planned Parenthood’s Supporters Rally at VCU
Supporters of Planned Parenthood gathered Friday on the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University to voice opposition to abortion-clinic regulations passed by the General Assembly and to recent national attacks on the organization. The rally came the day after the Virginia Senate joined the House of Delegates in passing legislation that would place strict restrictions on the state’s abortion providers.
From Fletcher Babb & Jennie Lynn Price, Capital News Service
Supporters of Planned Parenthood gathered Friday on the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University to voice opposition to abortion-clinic regulations passed by the General Assembly and to recent national attacks on the organization.
The rally came the day after the Virginia Senate joined the House of Delegates in passing legislation that would place strict restrictions on the state’s abortion providers, likely causing many clinics to close.
“For the past month, there’s been an all-out assault on women’s reproductive health care, from the fake hoax videos coming from our clinics, to Congress voting last week to defund Title X and Planned Parenthood, to last night’s vote,” said Planned Parenthood employee Courtney Jones.
“It’s an all-out assault on women’s bodies – women’s access to health care – and frankly, we’re not going to put up with it anymore.”
Jones, who helped organize the rally, called the legislation vague and unclear. Planned Parenthood is waiting to see how the Virginia Board of Health handles the situation, she said.
“We’re looking at our legal options at this point,” she said.
Jones said four clinics in the state may be able to meet the new standards. Twenty-one clinics in Virginia now provide abortions.
Rally attendees hoisted bright pink signs, despite the day’s high winds, while speakers shared their positive personal experiences with Planned Parenthood and led the crowd in chants of “our bodies, our lives, our right to decide” and “Virginia legislators, lend an ear, your war on women stops right here.”
Fia Midboe, a student in VCU’s master of social work program, was one of an estimated 60 demonstrators. She said she is disappointed in Virginia.
“It’s hard to live in a state that’s set back 100 years in terms of values,” Midboe said. “It’s also hard to be in a place and see women who you know need these services and are not able to get them anymore because of ridiculous regulations.”
Midboe was particularly concerned about the legislation’s effect on women who have been raped or have experienced other difficult life situations.
“I think Virginians – particularly women and supporters of women’s health – need to band together, coalition-build, need to get loud, need to get frustrated and need to let people know that this is not what we want for ourselves,” Midboe said.
Thursday’s floor debate in the Senate was equally heated.
“This is absurd,” said an angered Senate Majority Leader Richard Saslaw, D-FairfaxA Capital Women’s Health Clinic in Richmond, said that most of the state’s abortion clinics could buckle under the costs of the new regulations. The bill would require retrofitting clinics to conform to hospital standards, including full-size waiting rooms and hallways the width of two gurneys.
“We really do see it as politically motivated,” Abrams said.
Tarina Keene, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia, agreed.
“The politicians behind this plan falsely claim they are protecting women’s health, yet their ultimate goal is to make it even more difficult for women to access abortion care in Virginia,” Keene said.
Last August, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli issued a legal advisory focused on the health regulations in abortion clinics statewide. He said that he would like to see these clinics held to the same standards as large-scale hospitals.
Having passed both House and Senate, the bill awaits the signature of Gov. Bob McDonnell, who has publicly supported Cuccinelli’s opinion.
Olivia Gans, the president of the Virginia Society for Human Life, hailed the bill’s passage as “a very common-sense, protective measure.”
Gans highlighted the trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell in Philadelphia, whose illegal after-hours abortion clinic made grisly headlines last year.
According to Gans, a Virginia woman was one of Gosnell’s patients who died in what prosecutors called a “house of horrors.”
“Abortion is not a casual experience,” Gans said. “It’s always an invasive procedure. We have evidence that women are dying.”
Jeff Caruso, executive director of the Virginia Catholic Conference, said his organization applauds the passage of the legislation.
“In our view, the General Assembly decided the abortion industry should no longer be exempt from safety standards that apply to other surgery centers,” he said.
Caruso called the bill an important women’s health measure.
“These are common-sense safety standards that will do a lot to further women’s health and safety,” he said.
Planned Parenthood began in 1916. The organization’s mission is to improve women’s health and safety, prevent unintended pregnancies and advance the right and ability of individuals and families to make informed, responsible choices.
Andrea Gomperts, also a VCU social work student, attended Friday’s rally.
“The funding that goes to Planned Parenthood is for health screenings and all the different services they provide that go toward the health and safety of women,” Gomperts said. “If that funding is taken away, women are not going to have the resources that they need.”
Photos by: Jennie Lynn Price
-
Recommend this
on Facebook -
Report an error
-
Subscribe to our
Weekly Digest
Notice: Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.
These protesters, I suspect, have been clinging for too long to narrow ideological notions of ‘choice’ and ‘women’s rights’. Clearly they offend against intellectual honesty when they go on refusing to consider the rights of the child at risk of abortion and the fact that every abortion is an act of violence, albeit in a medical setting.
Violence against children is never ‘necessary’. All violence is preventable. Before as well as after birth, children should never receive less protection than adults. Their mothers’ personal and social needs can and should be met by non-violent means.
Genuine medicine does no deliberate harm to either patient, the mother or her unborn child. It is more than just financial greed that drives abortionists. It is blind prejudice that goads these ‘doctors’ to refuse to even acknowledge the humanity of the small defenceless lives they deliberately truncate. From first knowledge of pregnancy, we know that the child conceived is already alive and growing, not just ‘potentially’ alive. Medical science confirms the real presence of a small genetically unique human life, being protected and nurtured in his/her mother’s womb. We can identify the child’s father, and whether the child is a son or a daughter.
The Law should never trivialize or tolerate violence, not even against these smallest human beings. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has recognized that all children are entitled to “legal protection before as well as after birth”.
Using the Bible as a benchmark, can we speculate that there is a relationship between national laws that allow abortion and national bankruptcy? Start with II Kings and II Chronicles 7:14. Or to put it another way, does the God of Israel, if He exists, bring judgement on nations for shedding innocent blood of inhabitants ot the womb?
Let us proclaim liberty to all inhabitants from conception to the end of life. Leviticus 25:10 is found on the Liberty Bell.
First of all, this article did not stay on topic/point and wasn’t well written. Are the writers going to talk about State regulations or Federal Funding?? And Womens’ rights?? To regulate a facility (FOR women) to give clinics higher standards… isn’t that a GOOD thing for women? I’m not in favor of government regulations necessarily, but when laws are being broken inside Planned Parenthood clinics and women are being abused, it’s time to take a look at what’s really going on inside and fix the problems. I wonder how many of the astounding SIXTY people who were protesting really understood what they were protesting and why. And are they aware of the laws that were broken at a Planned Parenthood here in Richmond, along with one in New Jersey. These 2 clinics, along with others, were caught red-handed supporting and encouraging sex trafficking of 13 and 14 year old girls. Let’s talk about protecting women!!! The writers of the article sound uninformed as well.
RVANews.com, you ran an article that was “news”, but you profoundly missed the facts that caused this tiny protest to be news. You’ve got to share the WHOLE story. Not just a fraction…
No, Christi, YOU get the facts straight. First of all, clinics are held to standards as well. There are health codes regulated by both the state and city to city regarding clinics and I mean any clinic. This is clearly political because there are no other pushes to create new clinic regulations for clinics that perform surgical procedures of the caliber of a surgical abortion (I make the distinction here because most of these clinics are not giving surgical abortions. There is such a thing as medical abortions which are administered very early in a pregnancy. So this new regulation would also apply to places simply prescribing medication). This is not a matter of increased safety for women, in the slightest. The very grisly, underground abortion clinics that are mentioned are the very things that will begin to crop up as desperate women take desperate measures. This will simply shut down places that have trained professionals working in sterile environments. These new regulations are completely impractical. To expect a small clinic to adhere to standards of a large-scale hospital which serves hundreds of people on a daily basis makes no sense. This is simply a way of ending abortion through practice as it has failed so many times legally, because it is a clear infringement upon the CITIZEN’s rights under the constitution (a fetus is not a citizen). If you were truly against regulation, you would realize the fundamental ideology behind being against regulation which is that an institution should not be making decisions for an individual.
LASTLY (and most frustrating of all things that I’d like to address in your comment), they were in no way caught “red-handed”. In fact they were the ones turning in whom they suspected to be ringleaders of a sex-trafficking ring. They reported to authorities several people in several different states requesting services for underage girls suspected of being sex slaves. You are a fucking idiot.
And to the ladies above, regardless of your system of beliefs, there is such a thing as separation of church in state. In no case should the bible EVER be a benchmark for the creation of ANY law. If you had any knowledge of the Constitution you would be aware of this fact. I would rather not live in a country where other’s religious beliefs are forced upon me. There are other means of spreading the word of Christ. Leave my government and my body alone.
*church and state
Yeah Sarah! Get ’em girl!!
Oh Sarah, what you do not understand is that anti-choicers only want human traffickers and pimps of teens to get fair warning, via prompt dismissal and bold (unarmed!) acknowledgment that they are dangerous and likely armed criminals from the PP officials, BEFORE you call the FBI. Do unto others and all that….
since when does allowing the option to have an abortion equate to loving sex traffickers and pimps?
i just love crazy ass Christians “standing” up for rights. Are you forgetting all the people who can’t afford care so they have to go to places like Planned Parenthood for medical services.
But I guess because they people aren’t rich like you…they shouldn’t deserve medical treatment. Damn….they might not even be God’s children! Ohhhhh blastphemy!!!! Ohhhh Lawd what is we gon dooooo????? All ’em sinners out there, let’s just cut off their access to medical attention so we see less and less of them. You don’t fool me…you don’t care about life! If you did, try making it better for those less fortunate by doing things like, oh, not shutting down public health clinics. You people make me sick.
Thanks for your comments those of you with education and compassion for those living!