OPINION:
One month ago, on Jan. 10, the Virginia General Assembly building opened its new doors for the 2024 session. It has been as fast and furious a month as most regulars in Richmond can remember. The new, slim Democratic majority is busy pushing forward a radical agenda that they promised their donors they would pursue if elected.
While it appears that decisions have been made to put their promised unlimited abortion-to-birth amendment on hold until 2025, the pro-abortion Democratic majority has introduced no shortage of other dangerous bills on the subject.
Virtually all of the pro-abortion bills introduced and making their way through committee are what may be called “shield” laws. These laws do nothing to ensure the safety of pregnant women and girls or their children. The purpose of such bills is to protect abortion providers from any legal recompense for their reckless behavior. One such bill has already passed the Senate.
These laws prevent warrants that allow investigations of abortion providers’ unsafe environments or practices. So-called shield laws prohibit the state of Virginia from cooperating with other states where these unchecked abortion providers may be guilty of breaking laws or harming women. In other words, if passed and signed into law here, these laws would turn Virginia into a home for any bad actor who needs a haven to practice unscrupulously, free of any legal interference.
They will also allow abortion providers to send abortion drugs through the mail to other states with protective pro-life laws in place, thereby breaking those state’s laws and putting more pregnant women at risk of dangerous complications.
Does Virginia really want to become a safe harbor for the likes of Philadelphia’s Kermit Gosnell, the now-jailed murderer who ran a notorious abortion business for years until he killed a newborn baby and his mother?
Meanwhile, the same pro-abortion majority has defeated a bill to provide medical care to a baby who might survive an abortion. The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Care Act failed in a House of Delegates subcommittee. This means that those who are determined to protect the abortion industry in Virginia are so callous they can’t even acknowledge that an infant who has managed to survive an attempt on their life by abortion deserves reasonable treatment like any other premature newborn.
Perhaps if advocates of abortion access had voted for passage, it might mean we have to ask (and they need to answer) what the difference is between that baby and the millions who are killed by abortion every day in this country. They can’t allow that conversation to happen.
These Democrats are walking in lockstep toward creating a place where abortion providers and businesses like Planned Parenthood can operate without any regulation. They are not pro-woman; they are in league with the abortion industry. One Northern Virginia state senator has even stated as much in an email to her constituents, commenting that these laws will make Virginia a place where abortion providers will be able to ply their trade without any government interference.
Pro-abortion organizations in Virginia have made it clear that after a constitutional amendment, these “shield law” bills are their top priority. They know that they need to protect their businesses.
This effort to push these bills matters because next year, Virginians will once again vote for a new governor and General Assembly members. Abortion advocates are going to relentlessly insist to the public that they must “protect abortion rights” by securing the election of legislators who will do so. Virginia voters need to ask why these groups and legislators are so committed to covering the tracks of unscrupulous abortion providers at the expense of women’s health and safety.
These bills are just one more example of how radical the pro-abortion members of the General Assembly are and how much they owe to abortion groups who backed their campaigns.
If these legislators really cared about the women of Virginia, they would demand that new laws be enacted that will advance assistance to pregnant women and make it easier and safer to have a baby in Virginia. They would support bills that assist Virginia’s mothers in finding information about free care and support offered. Instead, they have even suggested future action to interfere with the services offered at the 42 mother-helping and free pregnancy resource programs in and around Virginia.
This slim but powerful pro-abortion majority in the General Assembly is determined to use every opportunity to force through a dreadful agenda that doesn’t do anything but place women and their babies in danger as never before. This is not about women’s rights or health care: This 2024 Democratic-led General Assembly is all about abortion on demand, even at the cost of women in Virginia and the rest of the country.
Virginians must not be fooled about what Virginia Democrats really care about, and they must contact their members immediately to stop the passage of these bills that will ultimately place another tragic mark on our state’s history.
• Olivia Gans Turner is president of the Virginia Society for Human Life.
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