In Virginia, pro-abortion Gov. Terry McAuliffe has appointed Wendy Klein and former state Del. Jim Shuler to be on the Virginia Board of Health. Unfortunately, both Klein and Shuler are abortion supporters.
Friday’s appointments came amid a review of strict new abortion clinic regulations adopted by a health board dominated by appointees of McAuliffe’s anti-abortion predecessor, Republican Bob McDonnell. McAuliffe ordered the board to take another look at the regulations.
The new board members are Wendy Klein and former state Del. Jim Shuler. They replace McDonnell appointees Steven Escobar and Catherine Slusher.
Klein is a professor of obstetrics and gynecology who has often spoken at public hearings against the new regulations requiring abortion clinics to meet the same strict building standards as new hospitals. Shuler is a retired veterinarian.
Ever since Gov. McAuliffe took office in Virginia he has been doing the biding of pro-abortion groups, like NARAL and Planned Parenthood. For example, in 2014 he asked the Virginia Board of Health to reconsider abortion regulations their legislature adopted under former pro-life Governor Robert F. McDonald. The legislature believed these regulations were important in the wake of the scandal involving late-term abortionist Kermit Gosnell, who performed illegal after-birth abortions in an unsanitary facility in Philadelphia.
The regulations would require abortion facilities to meet the standards of outpatient surgical centers; and as LifeNews previously reported, the regulations would specifically address equipment standards, sanitation, staff training and building standards.
However, Gov. McAuliffe believes the regulations are unnecessary. He said, “I am concerned that the extreme and punitive regulations adopted last year jeopardize the ability of most women’s health centers to keep their doors open and place in jeopardy the health and reproductive rights of Virginia women.”
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Prior to making this statement, Gov. McAuliffe must have not reviewed the reports from health inspectors in Virginia because there have been over 300 health violations since the clinic regulations bill took effect. For example, at the Richmond Medical Center for Women inspectors found that staffers re-used old sponges for cleaning up, and at the Roanoke Medical Center for Women they found that red blood was splattered on patient room walls and on patient tables.
The president of the Virginians for Human Life Society, Olivia Gans Turner, told NRL News Today that the Governor has been working with others in the state to ensure that abortion groups get what they want. She said, “Pro-abortion groups have real allies in Gov. McAuliffe, Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam and Herring, who are successfully doing exactly what Virginia’s abortion industry requires in order to continue to operate unchecked and unregulated.”
