The Virginia Board of Health on Friday gave final approval to new regulations for abortion clinics that will force them to spend large sums on renovations that abortion rights advocates say are medically unnecessary.
Jay Paul for The New York Times
Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia's attorney general and a Republican candidate for governor, urged the approval of the rules.
Elise Amendola/Associated Press
Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic nominee, said Mr. Cuccinelli was "forcing his divisive ideological agenda" on women.
Hotly debated for two years, and now a point of contention in the campaign for governor, the new rules, which impose architectural requirements and mandate state inspections of clinics, were described by abortion foes as vital to women's welfare.
"We are extremely pleased that the Board of Health saw fit to ensure safety standards for the women of Virginia who enter these clinics," said Victoria Cobb, president of the Family Foundation of Virginia.
But abortion rights groups called the building requirements a thinly disguised attempt to cripple or bankrupt the state's 20 private abortion clinics and said that some clinics may be forced to close.
"We're being targeted because there is a political difference of opinion about what a woman deserves for her health care," said Rosemary Codding, director of patient services and co-owner of the Falls Church Healthcare Center, which performs about 1,200 abortions a year along with gynecological services.
The regulations are intended to carry out a law passed by the state legislature in 2011, which said that the facilities of abortion providers should meet the latest standards set for newly constructed hospitals. The requirements include, for example, five-foot-wide public hallways, large janitor's closets and at least four parking spaces for each surgical room.
Several other states — including Indiana, Kansas, Michigan and Pennsylvania — have imposed costly facilities regulations on centers performing abortions, but the Virginia rules appear to be the most demanding yet, said Katherine Greenier, a project director with the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia.
"The health centers here will need to pay anywhere from tens of thousands of dollars to a million dollars to meet architectural standards that are medically unnecessary," Ms. Greenier said.
Last year, the Health Board initially decided to "grandfather in" existing clinics, exempting them from many of the construction requirements, which were originally written for newly built hospitals.
But the conservative attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, ruled that such exemptions were illegal under the 2011 law and warned board members that they might be personally responsible for legal costs if they were sued over the matter. The board reversed itself, leading the state health commissioner at the time, Dr. Karen Remley, to resign in protest over what she described as political meddling.
Dr. Remley, in an interview Friday, said that she and many other legal and medical experts believe that Mr. Cuccinelli was wrong in his interpretation of the law, that its wording allows a more flexible application of the construction requirements.
As of now, all 20 clinics that provide first-trimester abortions will have to comply with the new requirements by late 2014, with the exact date depending on when they were licensed last year. By law in Virginia, later abortions are performed in hospitals.
Mr. Cuccinelli is the presumed Republican nominee for governor. Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic nominee, has attacked him for crusading against abortion and promoting the new clinic regulations.
Friday's Health Board decision, Mr. McAuliffe said in an e-mail, "was an unnecessary move that was the result of Ken Cuccinelli forcing his divisive ideological agenda on Virginian women."
But it is Mr. Cuccinelli's job to interpret a law passed by the legislature and signed by the governor, said Anna Nix, a spokeswoman for Mr. Cuccinelli's campaign. In his attack on the clinic regulations, she said, Mr. McAuliffe "shows a total disregard for Virginia's elected legislators, suggesting that he will just ignore the laws he doesn't like."
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