A zoning amendment passed by the Alexandria City Council will now allow abortion providers to open up shop in commercial and mixed-use areas.
The amendment was a response to the council’s resolution 3087, which asked the Planning and Zoning department to check zoning ordinances to make sure there were no impediments to allowing health care providers that provide abortion services to open for business in commercial and mixed use zones in the city.
Planning and Zoning recommended amendments be made to zoning code to address inconsistencies in healthcare-related use definitions to ensure that medical offices and clinics, including those that provide abortion services, can be approved by-right in commercial and mixed-use zones.
The topic was a heated one with many wanting to be heard.
“The establishment of new clinics would benefit our friends and neighbors throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia,” said Matthew Warner, speaking on behalf of the Alexandria Commission for Women. “Additionally it would benefit people living in the border states of West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina where abortion has either been completely banned or severely restricted.”
Others were adamantly opposed.
“Health care is either a preventative or a restorative practice. Abortion is the suffocation, poisoning or dismemberment of a pre-born human,” said Elise Ketch, with the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising. “Elective abortion ends a pregnancy by forcing a human being to be born dead. Pregnancy is not an illness. Thus abortion is not restorative health. Therefore, abortion businesses are not health care and do not fit the profession of health care office nor medical care facility.”
Some spoke out without being called to do so. There were two outbursts with cries of “Abortion is murder” from the audience, after which those anti-abortion advocates were asked to leave the council room.
Just before the vote, Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson said many of those against the amendment were the same who celebrated the federal decision last year that put abortion issues in the hands of state and local policy makers.
“You asked for us to make decisions on that, and we’re making decisions on it now,” Mayor Wilson said. “Ultimately, if you disagree with the decisions that state and local policymakers make on this issue, we have elections, and you can resolve it with those elections. But ultimately, we’re making
the decisions that we believe are in alignment with the values of our community.”
The city council vote for the zoning change amendment was unanimous.
