RICHMOND, Virginia – In a series of important votes on Thursday, Democrats in the Virginia Senate voted down several bills that would have made it harder to get an abortion in the state. One of these was a proposal to ban abortions after 15 weeks, with some exceptions. This was a top priority for Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
They are the first important votes taken by the Virginia legislature since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. Based on the votes, it’s unlikely that these kinds of restrictions will be put in place this year in Virginia, which has some of the most liberal abortion laws in the South.
Sen. L. Louise Lucas said at a news conference after the hearing, “The brick wall will stand strong as long as Senate Democrats have the majority, and these extreme bills will never pass.”
Several similar bills are still alive in the House of Delegates, which is run by Republicans, but they haven’t moved forward yet. Anything that gets through the House is likely to fail in the Senate as well.
Early this year, Republican House Speaker Todd Gilbert said that because Virginia’s government is split, he didn’t think there would be a lot of progress on abortion this year.
Youngkin’s spokeswoman, Macaulay Porter, said Senate Democrats had “solidified their extreme position” and were going against the will of Virginians who want “a reasonable compromise” on the issue.
At the moment, abortion is legal in Virginia during the first and second trimesters. During the third trimester, the procedure can only be done if two or more doctors agree that continuing the pregnancy is likely to “substantially and irreparably” hurt the woman’s mental or physical health or cause her death.
Lucas is the chair of the Senate Committee on Education and Health. On Thursday, the three bills were voted down along party lines and without discussion. This was after a subcommittee had heard testimony and recommended that they be voted down.
The bill, which was backed by Youngkin and sponsored by Republican Sen. Steve Newman, would have made exceptions for rape, incest, and the woman’s life or physical health. Any doctor who broke the rules would be charged with a class four felony, which could lead to two to ten years in prison and a fine of up to $100,000.
Newman said that the proposal was a well-thought-out compromise “that supports mothers and offers common-sense protection for the unborn.” He said that the measure would not change how doctors treat miscarriages, stillbirths, and ectopic pregnancies.
“This bill in no way makes a woman a criminal,” he said when he introduced it earlier this month.
A less strict bill from Republican Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant, who is an OB-GYN, was also shot down by the committee. Her bill would have put new limits on abortions in the third trimester, letting them happen only when the woman’s life is in danger.
It would have allowed abortions through the second trimester before viability, which is either 24 weeks or 22 weeks, if three doctors agreed.
Dunnavant said that since the current Virginia law was written, medical progress has moved the date of viability up in a pregnancy.
She said, “When a baby can live outside the womb, there’s no reason to kill that baby to protect the mother.”
Her bill lost by a vote of 9 to 6.
Dunnavant is a member of the committee, but he was not there when the vote was held in person. This made Democrats angry, and Dunnavant apologized. Dunnavant said she was just late to the meeting, and she pointed out that her vote was still counted.
The Republican Sen. Travis Hackworth’s bill was the third one that didn’t pass. It would have banned almost all abortions, except in cases of rape, incest, or the woman’s life. An “illegal abortion” would have been a class four felony.
In a statement, the head of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia, Jamie Lockhart, said, “All three of the dangerous anti-abortion bills that were in front of this committee were serious threats to the health and rights of Virginians, and we are thrilled that they were all shot down.”
The result did not come as a surprise. Since the Roe v. Wade decision last year, Senate Democrats have said they will fight any effort to make abortion harder to get.
But the election of Democratic Sen. Aaron Rouse this month in a special election gave their caucus more room to breathe. Rouse took over a seat that had been held by a Republican, giving the Democrats just one more vote in the chamber.
Joe Morrissey, a Democrat, has said in the past that he would be willing to support more restrictions on abortion, even if it meant using an unusual floor procedure that, before Rouse’s win, could have let the Republican lieutenant governor break a tie vote.
In 2020, when Democrats had full control of the state government, they made it easier to get an abortion and eased some restrictions on clinics. They did this to make the state a “safe haven” in the South.
This year, they are trying to pass a bill that would put a “fundamental right to reproductive freedom” in the state Constitution.
Republicans say that the amendment would make abortion completely free. Sen. Jennifer McClellan, who is behind the bill, says that’s not true and that the goal is to codify the legal framework that was in place at the federal level before the Supreme Court’s decision last year.
If that idea gets to the House, it will almost certainly be shot down.
This fall, when all legislative seats are up for election, the laws about abortion in Virginia could change.
