Perspective 

Any reasonable person who has studied different surgical abortion methods will agree that the procedure is physically intense and deeply invasive. As such, it would be irrational not to hold these clinics to the standards of similar facilities in Virginia.

Abortion clinic operators routinely equate women's health with access to abortion. But they are less concerned about such issues as health standards for safe and sanitary surgical abortions or abortion pills (troublingly, doctors are now prescribing abortion pills over Skype).

That abortion facilities should have less oversight than veterinary clinics is an outrageous injustice to women. If those who manage abortion facilities truly had the best interests of women at heart, they would be more than willing to support and comply with basic hospital or outpatient surgical facility standards.

Jeanne Monahan, Washington

The writer is the director of the Center for Human Dignity at the Family Research Council.