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Virginia regulations on abortion clinics

Virginia is on its way to forcing abortion clinics to adhere to difficult-to-meet building requirements (essentially, those of hospitals). These regulations will likely put many abortion clinics in the state out of business temporarily or permanently.

These kinds of regulations are known as "TRAP" laws (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers). The idea is to regulate abortion clinics in a way that looks innocuous but makes continued operation impossible.

What Virginia is doing with building regulations has been in vogue lately with state governments. The asserted reason for adding additional regulations on abortion providers is to ensure the highest standard of safety and care for women who are undergoing a serious medical procedure. The problem is that a) there is little to no evidence that the additional regulations are necessary and will in fact reduce incidents of complications in abortions (the vast majority of which are relatively simple and safe 5-10 minute procedures), and b) similar regulations are not being imposed on other types of comparable medical clinics or facilities. 

This is one of those areas of American politics that is just pure theater: Everyone knows what pro-life government officials are doing, yet those officials keep up the pretense. It baffles me why, under the Casey decision, TRAP laws are not easily found unconstitutional as "undue burdens."  

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