Virginia lawmakers have introduced a bill that would protect preborn children after 15 weeks of gestation. Though the abortion industry is angry over it, the reality is that a bill with this gestational limit is unlikely to prevent most of the abortions already committed in the state.
Last year, following the fall of Roe v. Wade, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced his intentions to see a 15-week bill passed. And now, on the first year of the 2023 legislative session, Republicans have introduced that bill.
“We have said that there would be no criminal penalties whatsoever when it comes to the mother,” Sen. Steve Newman, who introduced the legislation, said. “This is a common-sense bill to say that if a child feels pain, we should protect him or her.” Under Newman’s Bill, SB 1385, abortionists would be charged with a felony for committing an abortion after 15 weeks unless medically necessary, without exceptions for children conceived as a result of rape or incest.
The most recent research reveals that a preborn child almost certainly feels pain by the end of the first trimester, if not before. However, it is not the ability to sense pain that confers upon a human being his or her right to life; this right belongs to each member of the human species the moment he or she comes into being, at fertilization.
Kathy Byron introduced a similar bill in the Virginia House of Delegates, though her bill, HB 2278, does contain exceptions for rape and incest.
Jamie Lockhart, Executive Director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia, quickly denounced the move in a press release. “Delegate Kathy Byron made good on Governor Glenn Youngkin’s promise to try to ban abortion in Virginia by introducing this proposed legislation, which would hurt Virginians and put politicians where they don’t belong: in control of people’s private medical decisions,” she said. “Let’s be clear: a ban is a ban, plain and simple. Like all bans, Delegate Byron’s proposed bill would deny Virginians the fundamental right to control their own bodies, lives, and futures.”
Yet these bills are likely to have a negligible effect on abortion in Virginia; the latest abortion surveillance report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that virtually all abortions in Virginia, like the rest of the country, already take place before 15 weeks gestation.
