Tough clinic regulations repealed

During his gubernatorial campaign, Terry McAuliffe pledged to end expensive new regulations that he said were forcing abortion clinics to close.

"As governor, I'm going to get right down and start to work to make sure I stop it, so no more of these women's health centers shut down in Virginia," the Democrat said in a July 2013 speech. "You have my word on that."

Three months earlier, the Virginia Board of Health passed regulations to require abortion clinics to adhere to building standards for hospitals. The rules required renovations such as widening halls and doorways and meeting hospital regulations for ventilation in procedure rooms and available parking.

Proponents said the new standards would make facilities safer; opponents,  including McAuliffe, said the regulations were a ruse to drive clinics out of business.

The regulations were approved by a 15-member health board. Eight of the members had been appointed by McAuliffe's predecessor as governor -  Republican Bob McDonnell, an abortion opponent.

McAuliffe, during his first year in office in 2014, began to replace McDonnell's board appointees. And that September, the administration decreed that the regulations should be amended, opening the door for the Board of Health to revisit the rules and start a lengthy process of review and public input.

Now, let's fast-forward to this year. On Oct. 24, the refashioned board voted to end the building code regulations, citing a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June that struck down similar abortion clinic rules in Texas.

When the board voted, 11 of its 15 members had been by appointed by McAuliffe. The governor, since coming to office, had purged all eight McDonnell appointees who supported the restrictions three years earlier, even though each had been eligible to serve a second term.

There were 20 abortion clinics in Virginia when the building regulations were passed in 2013, and 14 remain. Two of them blamed their closings on the regulations.

McAuliffe vowed to put an end to clinics closing because of the regulations. We rate this "Promise Kept."