Facing Which Direction?

(Editorial cartoon by Mike Luckovich and published in the Atlanta Journal Consitution April 26, 2012.  Click on image to enlarge, and then be good enough to return.)

Sometimes the editorial board of the Washington Post gets it right, and this is one of those times.

AT ABORTION clinics, the presence of awnings, the width of doorways and the dimensions of janitorial closets have little to do with the health of patients. But by requiring that Virginia’s 20 abortion clinics conform to strict licensing standards designed for new hospitals, the state has ensured that many or most of them will be driven out of business in the coming months. ...

...According to a survey by the state Health Department, just one of the 19 surviving clinics meets the requirements. Fifteen of the remaining facilities estimated their combined costs of compliance at $14.5?million.

Some of the clinics, including those operated by Planned Parenthood, which has a national fundraising network, will survive. Many others, which are run as small businesses, probably will not. Most have no means to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to widen corridors, install state-of-the-art surgical sinks and expand parking lots.

What’s more, the upgrades they face are arbitrary manifestations of the state’s overweening power. Other types of walk-in clinics, including those that perform oral and cosmetic surgery, are unaffected by the regulations. ...

Regulation is essential for all health services. But there is no evidence that unsanitary conditions or slapdash procedures are common at abortion clinics in Virginia nor that women who seek services from them are at risk. The state’s assault on women’s reproductive rights is an ideological crusade masquerading as concern for public health.   [Emphasis added]

Exactly so.

The Republican  Party continues to claim it is returning to its roots, that it has much to offer minorities and immigrants and women, but those claims are usually offset by its basest base:  Limbaugh, the Tea Partiers, the Religious Reich.  So who are we to believe?

I guess we'll have to wait until 2014 to find out.