The Virginia Board of Health voted 11-2 on Friday “to require abortion clinics to meet strict, hospital-style building codes” that many women’s health advocates say will put abortion providers out of business and prevent women from accessing essential medical services.

Pending final approval by conservative state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) and Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) — which is almost definite — Virginia will join other GOP-led states such as North Dakota, Mississippi, and Alabama in imposing stringent regulations meant to arbitrarily shut down abortion clinics.

The regulations — part of a nationwide anti-choice campaign to adopt so-called Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers, or TRAP, laws — would require clinics that provide abortions to meet the same standards as outpatient hospital facilities, forcing many clinics to choose between expensive and medically unnecessary renovations such as widening halls and doorways or shutting down entirely. While the health board originally wished to grandfather existing clinics from having to comply with the new rules, Cuccinelli threatened to make its members foot the bill for any litigation that resulted from the law.

Friday’s vote represents the latest skirmish in an ongoing conservative war on abortion clinics. In the past three months, states have proposed an astonishing 694 provisions restricting or rolling back women’s reproductive rights. Efforts to shutter local abortion clinics disproportionately impact low-income women and significantly increase the incidence unintended pregnancies.

This week, Virginia became the 21st state to restrict coverage for abortion services in the health insurance marketplaces set up under Obamacare. Over the past several years, that’s become an increasingly common tactic to restrict abortion access, as anti-choice lawmakers rush to prevent insurers from being able to cover the cost of the legal medical procedure.

Even though the measure banning abortion coverage — which was an amendment that Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) tacked onto a broader General Assembly bill — ultimately passed the legislature, it still sparked a debate that cut across party lines. Republican and Democratic lawmakers both suggested that preventing women from using their insurance coverage to pay for abortion services is ultimately a class issue, a point confirmed by women’s health advocates:

But members of both parties agree that the measure’s biggest impact will likely fall along class lines, landing hardest on some of the people the federal health-care overhaul was designed to help: working women who barely get by on their incomes.

“Those people that can afford insurance outside of the exchanges will be able to buy whatever they want. People that can’t afford to buy outside of the exchange will have to buy policies that don’t cover these procedures,” said Sen. John C. Watkins (R-Powhatan), who sponsored the bill but opposed the amendment by Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R). “It just sets up a class situation, in my mind.” [...]

Cianti Stewart-Reid, executive director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia, said that the only real effect of the amendment would be to limit access for women who make too much money to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to purchase their insurance on the private market.

“What it means is that women — by and large low-income but working women in Virginia — won’t have access to abortion,” Stewart-Reid said.

Abortion access is, of course, an incredibly important class issue. Of all the women who have abortions in the United States, 42 percent fall below the federal poverty line — partly because low-income women often still struggle to access affordable and reliable contraception. And when women are denied the opportunity to have a legal abortion, that greatly increases their risk of falling into poverty.

And the restrictions that state lawmakers pile on top of women seeking to have an abortion often hit low-income women the hardest. For example, 24-hour waiting periods — which force women to make multiple trips to a clinic — ultimately mean women are paying the costs for the additional transportation, the additional childcare, and the additional lost income during the time off of work. On top of the hundreds of dollars that an abortion procedure can cost out-of-pocket, that quickly adds up to be too much for poor women who are already struggling to pay the bills.

Virginia lawmakers were correct to identify the class dynamics exacerbated by unnecessary restrictions on abortion coverage. Unfortunately for the women in the state, however, their anti-abortion governor is expected to sign the legislation into law.

Virginia is set to implement controversial new abortion clinic restrictions that could force many of the facilities in the state to shut down — a popular anti-choice tactic that indirectly undermines women’s access to reproductive care by targeting abortion providers. After Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) quietly approved the new regulations on the Friday between the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, the state’s Board of Health will have the power to decide whether or not to adopt them on April 12.

Before then, however, thousands of Virginia residents are raising their voices in protest. Spearheaded by ProgressVA and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia, women’s health advocates delivered over 3,000 public comments opposing the new abortion restrictions to the Board of Health on Thursday. The public comment period ends on Friday, and opponents of the new policy hope they can make an impact by expressing the same message with each of the thousands of comments: “Put women’s health above politics. Don’t let red tape trap women.”

The reference to “trapping women” is a nod to the fact that women’s health advocates refer to these types of restrictions as TRAP laws, or the Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers. Targeting abortion clinics and providers, rather than pushing for outright bans on the abortion procedure itself, allows the anti-choice community to avoid inciting as much public outrage — which helps their efforts fly mostly under the radar.

At Thursday’s event, ProgressVA’s executive director, Anna Scholl, urged the state’s board to put women’s health before politics. “These regulations should be based on evidence-based medicine, not political agendas,” Scholl pointed out.

In fact, even though health boards are intended to operate as nonpartisan medical bodies, Virginia’s proposed TRAP laws have sparked an intensely politicized battle in the state. Reports have emerged that State Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) essentially threatened Virginia’s Board into approving the new restrictions by warning members they could be denied state-funded legal services if they voted against them. And last fall, Virginia health commissioner Dr. Karen Remley resigned from her position in protest over the proposed TRAP laws, citing her disapproval of the unnecessary abortion clinic restrictions as the primary reason she could no longer lead the Board “in good faith.”

If the Board of Health approves the final rules next month, they will likely take effect this summer. Many of Virginia’s 20 abortion clinics will likely be forced to close their doors when they are unable to adhere to the costly, complicated new rules.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R), the Republican nominee-apparent for governor this year, was asked by U.S. News how he planned to appeal to female voters. Rather than face up to his record of opposition to women’s reproductive rights, Cuccinelli told the publication that he thought women would vote for him because he’d worked to help the mentally ill:

US NEWS: [Can the GOP appeal] to women?

CUCCINELLI: I’m a person who appeals to women with a variety of issues that they just happen to care more about that I also happen to care about. I’ve worked to improve mental health and worked to help the mentally ill for over a decade and a half, including when I was in the legislature. Women’s issues aren’t just abortion. Women’s issues are everything women care about. And I have an awful lot of issues that I appeal to women on, just as a natural course.

While his empathy for mentally ill citizens is admirable, his record doesn’t hold up. Cuccinelli spent much of his tenure as Attorney General fighting against the Affordable Care Act — a plan that expanded mental health parity — even though the American Psychiatric Association called the landmark health care law “good for patients.”

He has also attacked Medicare as “despicable” and an attack on American freedom — despite the fact that the program provides mental health coverage for millions of America’s seniors.

(ht: Blue Virginia)

Lt. Governor candidate Pete Snyder (R-VA)

Snyder cites a study by “Jim DeMint and the conservative Heritage Foundation” to claim the expansion would cost Virginia “more than $900 million over the next eight eight years alone” — a figure that even Gov. Bob McDonnell’s (R) administration disputes. He then warns:

It gets worse. Along with the unprecedented spending, President Obama’s “free money” will force more and more Virginians into Medicaid, a costly program that we all know desperately needs reform. Cause get this: In some cases it hurts the very people it’s meant to help. In fact, a University of Virginia study showed in some cases it’s actually better to be uninsured than to be on Medicaid.

The ad offers no citation for this claim, but attributes the text “increased risk of adjusted mortality” to the University in general.

Watch the video:

In a guest post on the conservative Virginia blog Bearing Drift, Snyder identifies the study in question: a 2010 report by UVA doctors and others. (Snyder also elevates the suspect $902 million price tag claim to “$902 billion,” in an apparent typo in that post.)

That study merely found that — by a difference within the margin of error — Medicaid patients had a fractionally higher in-hospital mortality rate after major surgery than uninsured Americans did between 2003 and 2007. Even with Snyder’s heavy caveats, this does not match his claim. Given that those without insurance during that period were often young and healthy people — and were, by definition, wealthier than those who qualified for Medicaid coverage — it is to be expected that the poorest Americans might have slightly worse medical outcomes.

Moreover, those on Medicaid get good medical care. It provides cost-efficient coverage for lower-income patients who “face elevated health risks” and offers a broad range of services, “including preventive care and special services needed by those with disabilities or other chronic conditions” — at levels “comparable to access provided under private health insurance and far better than access available to the uninsured.” In fact, a study by the Government Accountability Office showed Medicaid beneficiaries were just as happy with their health care as those with private insurance.

Snyder, who claims in the ad to be an “entrepreneur” and “not a career politician,” has been a longtime political operative, working as a Fox News contributor and as senior political director for Republican pollster Frank Luntz, a key leader in the Republican opposition strategy during the Obamacare debate.