ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Weeks after the planning commission in Alexandria approved a zoning amendment that would ease abortion access, city leaders approved the resolution Saturday.
The Alexandria City Council's approval makes it easier for abortion clinics to open in commercial and mixed-use zones in the city.
“Staff has identified inconsistencies in healthcare-related use definitions that should be amended 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 zoning text amendment read.
Among the city officials supporting the change is Councilman R. Kirk McPike, who drafted a memo last year asking the city manager to determine efforts to preserve and protect abortion services following the overturn of Roe V. Wade.
"This proposal does not prioritize abortion providers over other forms of healthcare providers. This is a proposal that levels the playing field," McPike said during the meeting Saturday.
Although lawmakers in Virginia have the final say on the future of abortions, Kirk said amending how the clinics are zoned is one local capability.
“That will ensure that medical providers who provide abortion services can operate in the city in any zone that other medical providers are presently allowed to operate in,” McPike said. “The ability to make very difficult decisions regarding when to end a pregnancy that may no longer be viable are essential freedom. They are values that we hold in the City of Alexandria.”
Other supporters include the Alexandria Commission for Women. Commissioner Emily Eckert said not only would the clinics benefit the community, but “it would also benefit people living in our border states of West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina, where abortion has either been completely banned or severely restricted.”
Opponents of the change want the city to focus more on providers supporting women through pregnancy.
“This zoning change would deny Americans in our city of that good healthcare,” Maya Noronha of First Liberty Institute and parishioner at Basilica of Saint Mary, told WUSA9 Friday. “I'm very concerned that these centers conduct reproductive coercion by pressuring women to only proceed that they have no hope. We work together to provide those holistic services.”
In a recent The Walk Humbly Podcast, Bishop Michael Burbidge of the Catholic Diocese of Arlington also weighed in. Burbidge encouraged members of the diocese to “stay vigilant” and to “find a way to make our voices and our deeply held convictions known.”
Kirk added that other efforts to support abortion services include preparing information about reproductive choice tools available on the city’s website.