Hinkle: Clinic controls could create converts

Conservative, n.: a liberal who has been mugged. If there is any truth to the old joke, then the conservative count in the commonwealth just spiked.

Credit — or blame — for that goes to the General Assembly, which last week narrowly passed tough new regulations on abortion clinics. Suddenly, outraged liberals are sounding remarkably like libertarian advocates of laissez-faire capitalism and the industries they defend.

For instance, abortion-rights supporters already are warning that the heavy hand of government will impose requirements so absurd and so economically burdensome that they will force clinics to close their doors. "What they'll do is put a burden of extra cost that is not backed up by sound science," said one abortion provider who spoke on condition of . . . whoops! Actually, those were the words of Alva Carter Jr., chairman of a New Mexico dairy industry group, who was protesting new groundwater pollution regulations last April.

"The scale of the . . . current assault is unprecedented," complained Planned Parenthood spokes — no, that was The Wall Street Journal, raging last November against the EPA. The paper said the agency "has turned a regulatory firehose on U.S. business and the power industry in particular."

"The massive red tape . . . threatens to strangle . . . the industry," complained — well, that was Investor's Business Daily, writing about the Dodd-Frank financial bill last year. The paper cited a report by the American Bankers Association warning that "the coming 'tsunami of regulations' could wipe out hundreds of smaller banks." Substitute "abortion clinics" for "smaller banks," and you have the Virginia debate in a nutshell. (And yes, let's stipulate right here that many so-called conservatives believe in limited government everywhere except the uterus.)

"They could require things that are completely unnecessary." That actually was a quote from an abortion-rights supporter: Shelley Abrams, the director of A Capital Women's Clinic in Richmond.

And she is entirely right. Sometimes government does require things that are not strictly necessary. And those requirements impose a heavy financial burden. This is hardly a revelation. Small-government advocates have been saying it for many years. Yelling it, actually, at the top of their lungs. To little avail.

Example: Supporters of abortion rights now worry that even existing clinics might have to obtain a Certificate of Public Need from the state. To which one might reply: Why should they be different? For years, certain voices in Virginia have been suggesting that the COPN process — essentially, a government permission slip for health-care providers — creates an unnecessary market entry barrier. They have argued that government has no business deciding whether a particular community needs a particular health-care facility.

To advocates of laissez-faire, such questions should be left to the free market. But in their wisdom, state leaders have decided otherwise. Perhaps the prospect of applying the COPN process to abortion clinics will prompt some reconsideration.

Or perhaps not. After all, when free-marketeers and industry groups gripe about the burden of governmental regulation, they often get truth-squadded by deeply skeptical liberals. On Monday, the AP's "Spin Meter" gave the gimlet eye to predictions that the Obama administration's new smog regulations could destroy more than 7 million jobs. The news service pointed out that the researcher who came up with the number was "industry-sponsored." (Boo.) It lamented the "imprecise economic models" used. (Hiss.) And it pointed out that "those opposed to government regulations rarely mention the potential benefits to society." Amen, brother.

Yet critics of Virginia's new clinic legislation not only don't point out the potential benefits. They also (a) complain clinics are being singled out while (b) worrying that other outpatient services could soon face tighter rules too. "I think all physicians should feel threatened that we may be next," warned Democratic state Sen. Ralph Northam, a pediatric neurologist.

Abortion-rights supporters fume that the new rules really have nothing to do with protecting consumers and are, instead, part of an ideological campaign to "get" their industry. The same might be said about other industries fighting other regulations — e.g., payday lenders. Many people also find those operations morally odious and want to regulate them out of existence as well. Ditto the production of silicone breast implants, genetically modified crops, factory farming, and so on. That people with agendas exploit government power for political ends is not exactly news. Want to stop them? Limit government power in the first place.

If the expression were not so smarmy, one might call this a teachable moment. The fact that progressive defenders of abortion rights suddenly sound like Milton Friedman and Ronald Reagan suggests one of only two possibilities. The first is that abortion providers differ from every other entity in the universe — that they are uniquely pure of heart and incapable of error, and therefore ought to be left alone to do their good work in peace while beneficent government agencies impose increasingly strict oversight on the troglodytes and imbeciles who run everything else.

That's one possibility. The other is that when it comes to the excesses of the modern regulatory state and the danger of giving government in general too much power, the Milton Friedmans and Ronald Reagans of the world might — just might — have a tiny shred of a point.