Category Archives: Abortion

The Speaker Rules

Posted on February 14, 2024 by | 48 comments

Del. Don Scott (D-Portsmouth), Speaker of the House of Delegates Picture credit: Axios

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

The Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates is widely regarded as the second-most powerful figure, after the Governor, in Virginia state government. Speaker Don Scott (D-Portsmouth), elevated to the position this session after only two terms in the House, has let the power go to his head. Rather than acting like the presiding officer of the whole House, he is behaving like a partisan dictator.

Two events, perhaps related, earlier this week illustrate this attitude.

To help with the understanding of these events, it would be best to state some of the ground rules:

  • The Speaker appoints delegates to committees;
  • The Speaker assigns bills to committees;
  • The Speaker chairs the House Rules Committee;
  • The Rules Committee, unlike other committees, can send bills to the Floor without recommendation;
  • House Rules require that no amendment to a bill can be on a subject that is different from the one under consideration. This is known as the “germaneness rule”;
  • The Speaker can rule on questions of parliamentary procedure;
  • The Speaker’s rulings can be challenged. (Invariably, the members of the majority party, the Speaker’s party, will vote to uphold the Speaker’s rulings.);
  • The federal Hyde amendment prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for abortions except in cases of life endangerment, rape, or incest.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Abortion, General Assembly, Politics

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Right to Life March Falls on Deaf Ears as Dobbs Makes Abortion Issue More Difficult for Republicans

Posted on January 25, 2024 by | 121 comments

by Ken Reid

The 50th annual pro-life march took place in DC January 19; it has been held every year since 1974, the year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade, that women had a constitutional protection for abortion, and thus negated 50 state laws regulating the procedure.

It was cold and snowing, but thousands of committee pro-lifers showed up; could have been 100,000. I was not there, but the media coverage was quite limited.

You would think the pro-life movement won with the June 2022 “Dobbs” Decision, which overturned Roe and put the regulation of abortion back to each state. But alas and alack, that is not the case.

Abortion, as I wrote after “Dobbs,” still continues but is down in numbers since 1991 due to the advent of better ultrasound, home pregnancy tests and public education about unwanted pregnancies. There are no back-alley coat-hanger abortions, as the histrionic pro-abortion forces predicted, and if anything, prolife forces seeking six-week bans and the like are being flustered by the political process.  

The abortion drug, Mifeprex, was approved in 2000 and now comprises a majority of all abortions in the U.S. – only for use up to 10 weeks of pregnancy. A pending Supreme Court case may determine if the drug stays on the market or will be subject to state review  – thus negating the Constitution’s “commerce clause” and federal pre-emption, and creating more havoc in this nation. 

I don’t expect that to happen. Some 626,000 abortions occurred in 2021, the most recent year the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has numbers 

Anti- abortion groups continue to press their cases with state legislatures for. restrictions and some want a national ban by Congress, which is counter to “Dobbs” and has no chance of passage. Continue reading →

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Posted in Abortion, General Assembly

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Proposed Reproductive Freedom Amendment Could Eliminate Limits

Posted on December 8, 2023 by | 31 comments

by Emilio Jaksetic

House Joint Resolution 1 (HJ 1) and Senate Joint Resolution 1 (SJ 1) have been prefiled for consideration of the Virginia General Assembly to propose an amendment to the Virginia Constitution captioned “Article I, Bill of Rights, Section 11-A. Fundamental right to reproductive freedom.” A copy of HJ 1 is available at here and a copy of SJ 1 is available here.

Virginians need to (1) carefully consider the danger that vague and undefined terms in the proposed constitutional amendment could be exploited to advance an agenda that extends far beyond just abortion rights; and (2) consider the need for an alternative proposed amendment that is compatible with compromises likely to be acceptable to a majority of Virginians. Continue reading →

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Posted in Abortion, General Assembly

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Virginia Dems Have a Razor-Thin Majority, Not a Mandate

Posted on November 24, 2023 by | 90 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

Gosh, it seems like it was just last month that Virginia Democrats accused Republicans of being too extreme on abortion and used that wedge issue to gain a slight edge in the General Assembly. (The GOP favors a reasonable 15-week limit, preventing the grisly practice of late-term abortions, except in cases of rape, incest or the life of the mother being in danger.)

Now Democrats have shown who the true extremists are. They’ve introduced a constitutional amendment that would guarantee abortion rights, with no restrictions.

Fooled again, Virginia.

After the 2023 elections, Democrats have majorities in both the House and Senate: 51-49 in the House and 21-19 in the Senate. The governor can’t veto a constitutional amendment, so look for all of the abortion enthusiasts in Richmond to merrily support this measure. It needs to pass the General Assembly in two consecutive years and then has to be approved by voters. So this guarantees the Dems will be pimping this issue for the next several years.

Sigh.

They’re just getting started with a slew of bills that they know Gov. Glenn Youngkin WILL veto. The Democrats simply want to get Republican members on the record with “no” votes so they can demagogue the issues in the campaigns. Continue reading →

90 Comments

Posted in Abortion, General Assembly, Politics

Virginia Might Legalize Abortion in All 9 Months of Pregnancy

Posted on November 20, 2023 by | 131 comments

Human fetus attached to a placenta. Source: Wikipedia

by Hans Bader

Virginia may permanently legalize abortion in all nine months of pregnancy by banning any regulation of abortion unless necessary to meet a compelling interest, and — more importantly — defining “compelling interest” to exclude the life of the fetus even after viability.

That is what is mandated by a state constitutional amendment that has just been proposed by the Democratic Majority Leader in Virginia’s House of Delegates, House Joint Resolution No. 1

Its text defines compelling interest to include only the health of the mother, not the life of a viable fetus, by stating that a “state interest is compelling only when it is to ensure the protection of the health of an individual seeking care.” Fetuses are not “seeking care,” only their mother is.

By contrast, even when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld abortion rights, it recognized that the state had a compelling interest in protecting a viable fetus, from being aborted in the third trimester of pregnancy. As a result, current Virginia law only allows an abortion in the third trimester to protect the health or life of the mother, when “the continuation of the pregnancy is likely to result in the death of the woman or substantially and irremediably impair the mental or physical health of the woman.” Continue reading →

131 Comments

Posted in Abortion, General Assembly, Virginia Law

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Song Sung Blue

Posted on November 8, 2023 by | 123 comments

by James A. Bacon

Not every General Assembly race has been decided, according to the data displayed by the Virginia Public Access Project, but enough votes are in to conclude that the Democrats won the election. They retained their control of the state Senate and won a narrow majority in the House. Some preliminary observations:

Bye, Bye White House. Governor Glenn Youngkin can stop entertaining fantasies about running for president. Give him credit for fighting hard to win GOP control of the state legislature. But he failed. He has not cracked the code on how to turn blue states red, and, therefore, he does not create a viable alternative to Donald Trump in the GOP presidential nomination contest.

Abortion, abortion, abortion. Youngkin staked his effort to retake the General Assembly largely on a platform of banning abortion after 15 weeks (with exceptions for rape and incest). It was a more moderate plank than what we’ve seen in other red states, but it was not what most Virginians wanted. The Virginia GOP needs to decide which is more important: abortion or… taxes, government spending, jobs, crime, parental rights, public-sector unions, salvaging K-12, reforming higher- ed, and every other issue they could make progress on if Democrats didn’t have the abortion issue to beat them with. Continue reading →

123 Comments

Posted in Abortion, Elections

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Virginia Republicans Respond to Lies About Abortion

Posted on September 25, 2023 by | 47 comments

by Jeanine Martin

Democrats mean what they say: abortions allowed up until the moment of birth and for some, like former Governor Ralph Northam, even after a child is born.

Currently Democrats are claiming Republicans want to ban abortion in Virginia. For instance, the excellent Republican candidate for the State Senate in the 31st district, Juan Pablo Segura, has a Democrat opponent constantly running a TV ad saying he wants to ban all abortions, a position he has never taken. It’s simply a lie but that has never stopped a Democrat.

Now the Republicans are responding, explaining their position on abortion with a new ad.

From The Washington Post:

“Voters have a very distinct choice,” said Garren Shipley, spokesman for the House Republican Caucus, which paid for what he called a “six-figure” ad campaign. “Republicans have been absolutely clear from the get-go” that they favor a 15-week limit with exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the pregnant person, he said. “But Democrats can’t give you a straight answer about what they want to do.”

Republished with permission from The Bull Elephant.

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Posted in Abortion, Elections, General Assembly

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No Republican Says “Pregnant Persons”, WaPo

Posted on September 24, 2023 by | 53 comments

By Steve Haner

There is no way House Republican spokesman Garren Shipley used the term “pregnant person” in discussing the ongoing campaign debate over the abortion issue with a Washington Post reporter. The reporter or an editor intentionally broke up his quote to insert the now politically correct term in a recent story.

Here is the paragraph, with a highlight to show the direct and indirect portions of the quote:

“Voters have a very distinct choice,” said Garren Shipley, spokesman for the House Republican Caucus, which paid for what he called a “six-figure” ad campaign. “Republicans have been absolutely clear from the get-go” that they favor a 15-week limit with exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the pregnant person, he said. “But Democrats can’t give you a straight answer about what they want to do.”

Shipley would have referred to the life of the mother or the life of the woman. But, no, The Washington Post could not even use those terms in a direct quote in today’s environment. In woke Post land, people who are not women, who are not born with wombs, can carry unborn children.

The story focused on a new GOP-sponsored 30-second broadcast ad also tied to a website, and having the Post cover the development at all was a boost to Shipley’s team. The story concedes Democrats are less clear about their intentions. That one issue is already dominating the airwaves, with both sides accusing the other of blatantly lying about their plans if given control of the legislature. Continue reading →

53 Comments

Posted in Abortion, Culture wars, Elections

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Voyeurism Isn’t Good for the Soul (or Politics)

Posted on September 18, 2023 by | 28 comments

Susanna Gibson, Democratic nominee for the 57th District seat in the Virginia House of Delegates.

by Shaun Kenney

The scandal of the week involving Susanna Gibson is an indictment of our politics. Shame on us all for participating in it.

HAMLET Get thee ⟨to⟩ a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be
a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest,
but yet I could accuse me of such things that it
were better my mother had not borne me: I am
very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offenses
at my beck than I have thoughts to put them
in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act
them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling
between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves
⟨all;⟩ believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery.

— William Shakespeare, “Hamlet” Act 3, Scene 1 (1601)

Ophelia has given herself to Hamlet. Yet having placed her trust totally in men — her father, her brother, her lover — she is told by her beloved to remove herself to a nunnery. Or in the context of the Elizabethan age? A brothel — thus exchanging the ideas of nobility and love for pure utility and momentary pleasure.

Realizing the world for what it is — or at least, the world of Hamlet, Laertes, and Polonius — drives Ophelia insane. Having relied upon a branch made of willow, she drowns in a shallow pool, able yet unwilling to save herself and face such a world. Continue reading →

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Posted in Abortion, Culture wars, Democracy and Western Civilization, Elections, Ethics, Excellence and grace, General Assembly, Leadership, Money in politics, Politics, Public corruption

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When Did the RTD Become TMZ?

Posted on September 7, 2023 by | 35 comments

by Shaun Kenney

The Richmond Times-Dispatch was given a clip of David Owen — Republican candidate for House of Delegates — where he tells an audience of like-minded souls that he is, indeed, pro-life.

Charlotte Rene Woods over at the RTD decides to do the work of Democratic campaign operatives in what could only be viewed as an in-kind donation.

… and did we mention that this video was taken five months ago, in March?

So, for the sin of stating that he values life and is willing to protect the basic human right to exist, what does this earn Owen? A blistering TMZ-style article where such an admission is caged as if Owen had gone on a drunken tirade motivated by the Dead Milkmen rather than any sort of gravitas. Continue reading →

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Posted in Abortion, Civil Rights, Culture wars, Elections, Ethics, Media

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POLLS: Inflation Top Issue; Virginians Reject Democrats’ Position on Abortion

Posted on September 6, 2023 by | 58 comments

by Shaun Kenney

New polling data from Founders Insight reveal that 24% of Virginians are putting inflation as their top concern heading into the November elections, with abortion coming in at 15% and split between Democrats and Republicans.

To make matters worse for Virginia Democrats, a summer spent pushing abortion rights has backfired spectacularly, as the Planned Parenthood life of 40 weeks (and beyond) is wildly unpopular with most Virginians.

Making matters worse, Planned Parenthood’s so-called “reproductive rights” state constitutional amendments such as the one in Ohio this year go even further, allowing not only for abortion up to the moment of birth, but even permitting gender reassignment surgeries alongside a repeal of parental notification and parental consent.

Virginia Democrats are not hiding the football on their abortion-up-to-birth ambitions, as they continue to bring the bill before the Virginia General Assembly whenever they get the chance. Continue reading →

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Posted in Abortion, Business and Economy, Elections, General Assembly, Politics

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Yes, Virginia Democrats Really Do Want Abortion Up to 40 Weeks (and Beyond)

Posted on August 30, 2023 by | 105 comments

by Shaun Kenney

This November in Ohio, a referendum measure will be on the ballot that will not only enshrine abortion as a state constitutional right — the measure will eliminate parental notification and parental consent on any and all decisions about sexuality and gender in language so broad that it encompasses not just abortion but transgenderism as a question of “reproductive rights” — and it is coming to Virginia.

The Ohio referendum is sponsored not only by Planned Parenthood and the ACLU, but also by an organization called URGE, and is backed by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) — two groups whose interest in pushing transgenderism is upfront and clear.

Already, several Virginia Democrats running for public office have been open about their support for these referenda, many of which will be on the ballot in 2024 in the hopes that they will boost Democratic hopes in the presidential elections.

The good news in Virginia is that our reticence about referenda is a long-standing practice designed to allow cooler heads to prevail. The General Assembly must approve the referenda twice in concurrent sessions in order for such items to be on the ballot. Continue reading →

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Posted in Abortion, Civil Rights, Culture wars, Elections, General Assembly, Virginia Law

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Washington Post Gotcha’s Another GOP Candidate

Posted on August 15, 2023 by | 37 comments

by Victoria Snitsar Churchill

Despite The Washington Post‘s attempts to paint him as an anti-woman radical, Republican nominee for the House of Delegates 21st District John Stirrup of Prince William County makes a compelling case for his District to elect him to the open seat this November.

According to The Washington Post, “Stirrup told a woman who had approached him after a Republican primary debate on May 18th” … that he would … “support a 100 percent ban,” according to a recording obtained by The Washington Post. In another recording, made June 20, he told a man he met outside a polling place that “I’d like to see, you know, [a] total ban.”

Made surreptitiously by two abortion rights supporters posing as abortion foes, the recordings seem intended to pin Stirrup down on an issue that Republicans in some swing districts would like to sidestep but Democrats hope to make a rallying cry in Nov. 7 General Assembly elections.

Balancing one’s personal views with the views of a constituency is a game that elected officials have to play often and well.

Stirrup’s remarks shouldn’t be seen as a backtrack, regardless of the attempts to paint him as a flip-flopper by The Post. Continue reading →

37 Comments

Posted in Abortion, General Assembly, Media, Politics

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Virginia Democrats Have New Tourism Twist

Posted on May 31, 2023 by | 13 comments

by Olivia Gans Turner

Recently North Carolina passed a bill to prevent abortions after 12 weeks. This new law may save many lives in North Carolina, but most abortions actually happen earlier, in the first weeks of pregnancy.

Now Virginia Democrats are announcing their intention to make Virginia a destination state for abortions. In the upcoming 2023 elections they must hold the Senate and gain the House of Delegates in order to turn Virginia into a place where unlimited abortions are available and paid for with our taxes.

It is tragic that the Democrats in Virginia are prepared to make Virginia a destination state for abortions-on-demand through all nine months of pregnancy. It is infuriating that they have opposed every rational bill that has come out of the House of Delegates during the past two General Assembly sessions. They have even announced their desire to enshrine a permanent, unrestricted “Right to Abortion” into the Virginia Constitution.

In polling done earlier this year by McLaughlin and Associates, 70 percent of respondents stated that abortion should only be legal under very limited circumstances, including the life of the mother or rape and incest, with reporting. Less than 5 percent of abortions are done in the U.S. for those reasons. Another 60 percent oppose using tax dollars to fund abortions.

Pro-life Republicans are committed to passing reasonable laws on abortion, including the bill to protect unborn babies who can feel pain and a bill to provide medical care to babies who survive an abortion. Radical pro-abortion members of the Virginia Senate, led by Sen Louise Lucas, blocked every rational pro-life bill that came out of the House of Delegates.

Virginia Democrats are way out of step with most Virginians and are only committed to the abortion groups that fund so many of them. Abortion with no limits does not help women and it kills their babies. It is not good medicine or real health care. Tragically, it is big business in Virginia now.

It is up to Virginia voters to stop this dangerous agenda.

Olivia Gans Turner directs American Victims of Abortion (AVA), an outreach project of the National Right to Life Committee. This column was originally posted in The Republican Standard. It is reprinted here with permission.

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Posted in Abortion, Culture wars, General Assembly, Politics, Uncategorized, Virginia Law

The Abortion Hypocrisy

Posted on May 20, 2023 by | 115 comments

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

Republicans are hypocrites when it comes to abortion.

They base their opposition to abortion on the belief that a fetus is  a human being and killing an innocent human being is wrong. Hence, the term “pro-life.”  (This is a position on which I happen to agree with them.)

But are they pushing for an absolute ban on abortion, perhaps with exceptions for rape, incest, and the health of the mother?  Nope.  It seems they are settling on banning abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy.  They are justifying this by calling it “mainstream” and “not extreme”.

Excuse me, but why is a 13-week-old fetus worthy of protection that is not accorded a 12-week-old fetus?  Is one “more of a human” than the other?

Then there is our Governor, Glenn Youngkin.  He is pushing for banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. As I have pointed out before, that limit is not going to prevent many abortions in Virginia.  According to the CDC, only 2.2 percent of abortions in Virginia in 2020 were performed after the 15th week.  If Youngkin were truly interested in protecting unborn babies, rather than playing politics, he would push for a near total ban on abortion.

Sorry, Republicans, you can’t have it both ways.  A fetus is either a human at conception or it is not.  If it is, then what is the basis for deeming fetuses more than 13 weeks old qualitatively different from those 12 weeks or less old?  If it is not a human at conception, they why ban abortions at all?

If you believe that abortion is wrong because there is a human life involved, then push for a total ban, with some limited exceptions.  Otherwise, you are just being political hypocrites.

I don’t agree with Democrats on this issue, but at least they are being honest about their position.

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Posted in Abortion, Culture wars

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