TRAP Laws (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) are usually passed as a means to try and force clinics out of business by enforcing new, medically-unnecessary regulations that will be expensive to meet and maintain.

Virginia clinics are learning that the hard way. As new provider regulations begin to go into effect, the majority of clinics have said they will do the mandatory updates, regardless of the cost. And it’s quite a cost.

Via The Washington Post:

Most of Virginia’s abortion providers say they will comply with new state regulations that require them to meet the same strict building standards as new hospital construction.

…

NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia executive director Tarina Keene says it’s costing clinics $150,000 to $3 million each to comply and their plans still must be approved by the state.

Three clinics don’t plan to make the changes, and are either limiting the number of abortions they provide each month or have stopped providing them all together, according to the Washington Examiner. Anti-choice activists see the lack of actual closings as a sign that any fight over the unnecessary medical expansion was simply politics. However, the Examiner does admit that four of the 20 clinics that had said they would meet the new regulations stated on their applications for licenses that they may still be forced to close.