New bills undercut reproductive rights, says Virginia Democrats
Democratic leaders and women’s right advocates sounded the alarm Thursday about three bills they said would limit a woman’s reproductive freedom in Virginia. These bills have sparked debate, not only within the Commonwealth, but also nationwide
From Capital News Service, Claire Porter
Democratic leaders and women’s right advocates sounded the alarm Thursday about three bills they said would limit a woman’s reproductive freedom in Virginia. They said House Bill 1, which would grant individual rights to an embryo from the moment of conception, would be a step toward making all abortions illegal. On Tuesday, the House of Delegates passed the measure on a 66-32 vote.
The bill provides that “unborn children” from the moment of conception until birth at every stage of biological development “enjoy all the rights, privileges, and immunities available to other persons, citizens, and residents of the Commonwealth, subject only to the laws and constitutions of Virginia and the United States, precedents of the United States Supreme Court, and provisions to the contrary in the statutes of the Commonwealth.”No state has passed such a law. Since 2008, Republicans in Colorado and Mississippi have pushed for similar “personhood” bills, but they failed.
HB 1, sponsored by Delegate Bob Marshall, R-Manassas, now heads to the Senate. If the personhood bill becomes law, it would essentially criminalize all abortions in Virginia, opponents say. They worry that the law also would affect women’s access to regular contraceptive measures, such as intrauterine devices and the morning-after pill.
At a press conference Thursday in the General Assembly Building, Delegate Vivian Watts, D-Annandale, said she has asked Marshall “What is the definition of conception?” and “Does this mean we aren’t going to protect legal contraception?” Marshall has refused to answer, Watts said. She said he repeatedly responded with “That will be up to the courts to decide.”
According to Watts, the language of HB 1 is clear: that from the moment egg and sperm meet, anything that keeps the fertilized egg from being implanted in the uterus would be destroying a person. Sen. Donald McEachin, D-Richmond, said he believes the personhood bill is “absolutely an attack on contraceptives.”
“Republicans want to reserve the right to decide what should be considered a contraceptive in Virginia,” said McEachin, who chairs the Senate Democratic Caucus.“It makes me wonder if the Republicans’ real intent is to prevent access to contraceptives, to continue to blur lines, and eventually for them to make all family decisions for Virginians.”
Speakers at the press conference also criticized HB 462, which would require every woman undergoing an abortion to first submit to an ultrasound. The bill says the woman must be given an opportunity to view the ultrasound image of her fetus before the abortion.
Under the legislation, if the heartbeat cannot be detected, as is often the case early in a pregnancy, the woman would be subjected to a trans-vaginal probe. “House Bill 462 basically puts government inside a woman’s body, and government has absolutely no business there,” said Delegate Charnielle Herring, D-Alexandria. “These two bills (HB 1 and HB 462) represent an attack on women the likes of which we have never seen in our modern era, telling women what they must do with their bodies and forcing an invasive medical procedure onto a person who is exercising their constitutional right, is the epitome of big government.” The House passed HB 462 on a 63-36 vote on Tuesday.
By a similar margin, delegates also have passed HB 62, which would prohibit state-funded abortions for low-income women even if the child they are carrying would have totally incapacitating deformities or impairments. Katherine Grennier, a spokesperson for the local chapter of the ACLU, said HB 62 discriminates against impoverished Virginians. “It would restrict access for very poor women, resulting in a system where only wealthy women can access the full range of health care services in the face of a devastating pre-natal diagnosis,” Grennier said. She said this is “absolutely no way to treat a woman who is facing a medical crisis. No woman plans to have an abortion, but if she needs one, every woman deserves the chance to make the best decision for her circumstances.”
— ∮∮∮ —
Cross-party Voters
Here are several legislators who went against the majority of their party’s voting on HB 1 that would construe unborn children as persons:
Yes
- Joseph Johnson (D-4)
- Lacey Putney (I-19)
No
- Joe May (R-33)
- Tom Rust (R-86)
stock photo by taberandrew
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If you engage in sexual intercourse you should expect that activity to produce a child or children. People need to take responsibility for their behavior. As human beings we need to learn to control ourselves and rise above our natural impulses.
A protest is being organized: https://www.facebook.com/events/187137214719838/
but what about the women that are raped, they didn’t choose to engage in the activity.
“If you engage in sexual intercourse you should expect that activity to produce a child or children. People need to take responsibility for their behavior.”
Warren – How can the women of Virginia take responsibility for their behavior when it sounds like the state is trying to undercut all types of contraceptives? Not every women wants to be a “Quiverfull family” (google it if you don’t recognize the term) like the Duggers and pop out 20 kids on “god’s terms”. I’m a 30 year old women who has been taking the pill, like the majority of women do these days, because I am not ready to start a family. I have been taking the pill for over 10 years now. So you’re saying by me taking the pill at 19 I was being irresponsible? Irresponsible for wanting to finish college and start a career before I decide – on my terms – when I want to start a family?
Why does it seem that the majority of people that agree with this bill are men? If you take away a women’s right to contraceptives and a women’s right to choose, then it’s like stepping back in time by decades. This should essentially be a non-issue in this day and age. Women have the RIGHT to do whatever they want with their bodies and take whatever medication they see fit to use. We live in a country where citizens have the right and freedom to do what they please, but time and time again Republican men think they can get on their soap box and preach to women about what they can and cannot do. I am deeply disturbed with this vote and urge all women to vote against any representative that agreed to this bill when the next election rolls around.
@Warren:
Who are you to dictate what another person does with their body? For that matter, who is the government to tell someone that they can or can’t do something? The bottom line is that this bill infringes on the personal rights of women everywhere and if this bill is passed into law, it’ll set a really awful precedent to where YOUR personal rights are taken away. Today it’s the rights of a 14 year old rape victim who doesn’t want to carry the baby of the man who brutalized her. Tomorrow it could be something that would take away your personal rights.
Like others have said, not every pregnant female is someone who got knocked up after a night of consensual and unprotected sex. Many times someone gets pregnant after rape. Do you really want to look into the eyes of a woman who just got raped and tell her that she doesn’t have the right to an abortion? That you’re going to continue the trend of people forcing their will on her body and make her have a child she doesn’t want, just because you think she should “take responsibility”? That’s sick and disgusting.
Abortion is a dirty, disgusting, and awful thing. I think it’d be wonderful if there was never a reason for anyone to get an abortion, there were never any rapes, and if every person went into a sexual encounter with the mindset that there’s a chance they’ll get pregnant and have to care for a child. Unfortunately that’s just not going to happen any time soon, if ever, and I’m not going to force my personal viewpoints on someone else and take away their right to choose what happens with their body. I don’t know their mindset or their situation and since I cannot take care of any baby they may or may not have, I have no right to demand that they deliver a child that they don’t want. A wise person once said that my beliefs only extend to the tip of my nose and that I have no right to force my personal beliefs onto others. This is an example of that, especially since the #1 reason behind pro-life arguments is religious in tone.
Do you really think passing this bill will stop abortions? No. It won’t. They’ll just go underground, where there’s no obligation to have a clean and safe environment. Even now there’s a market for “back alley abortions” and this bill will only increase the demand.
Want to make abortion a thing of the past? Adopt. There’s thousands upon thousands of children who are in orphanages and foster care that need homes, kids that were thrown into the system by parents who didn’t want them but weren’t able to get an abortion. You can scream “take responsibility” all you want, but that isn’t going to change anything. You need to do more than just stomp your feet and say “just take responsibility or put it up for adoption”. You need to actually, y’know… DO SOMETHING to back your words up. I don’t think any pro-lifer has any right to demand a banning of abortions unless they personally start to take in the children that these people didn’t want.
“Melissa says If you engage in sexual intercourse you should expect that activity to produce a child or children. People need to take responsibility for their behavior.”
Helloooo… BIRTH CONTROL Is BEHAVING RESPONSIBLY. DO you REALLY want MORE teen births? MORE unwanted pregnancies? MORE people who end up needing gov’t assistance. GET A CLUE.
BIRTH CONTROL prevents ABORTION. This legislation will make many common and effective types of contraception ILLEGAL.
It will also make it a CRIME for a woman to put her unborn fetus (or zygote) in danger by.. oh, say… taking CANCER TREATMENTS or doing any number of things to protect her OWN LIFE.
What is this, the SPANISH INQUISITION?
Warren I agree,I see it as a matter of responsibility. Everyone believes baby-free sex is an entitlement but sex is for procreation in the grand scheme and even with contraception there’s a decent chance of making a baby. While I’m not religious, I completely understand why most religions say that sex should be between married couples. They alone are most capable of dealing with the consequences of it… a child. It seems those who treat sex as a recreational drug want to keep abortion around as an easy out from responsibility… basically they want to have sex and not have to deal with the natural consequences of it. 84% of abortions are performed on single women.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m no saint. I’ve made some choices in the past that could have gotten me into trouble but I hope I would have the courage to take responsibility for it. It’s not a matter of personal choice however, it’s a matter of the right and compassionate choice. Our personal pleasure does not override the responsibility of taking care of a life once you’ve made it.
I personally do not believe that all abortions should be banned. A woman should have the choice to not carry a baby to term that was made by rape or incest or if the health of the mother is at risk. Beyond that though we need to start changing out attitudes about sex. It’s not something we should be using as a drug, a cheap fix after a night of drinking. That change will not be made overnight but I personally think that if abortions become harder to get, people will start taking these choices more seriously.
@jeff. It might change people’s attitudes toward sex. I kinda doubt it though. In the meantime you’ll bring a whole bunch of unwanted children into the world. And for what? So people might start behaving the way you think they ought to?
@ Bryan, I understand what you are saying and you are right to an extent. Most of our opinions extend to how we think others should behave. This is why we have laws after all. I’m not big on trying to control people’s behaviors even if they are self-destructive but the fact is this leads to the creation of another entity, something outside of ourselves. Life and the termination of it shouldn’t be something we take lightly.
“sex is for procreation in the grand scheme”
Umm, why?
There are enough humans.
@ Boodle – well-said!
@Warren & Jeff
And let’s not forget that there are plenty of married couples who also want to plan their families rather than have them happen at any old time. Should married couples have to not have sex for years in order to be 100% sure there are no accidents? “People need to take responsibility for their behavior” makes it sounds like all sex is bad. And that’s not the case. Sex is intimacy, and to frame it in a way that makes it all bad is just ridiculous.
You talk about taking responsibility for actions, but it’s not your place to parent other people. You get to tell your (hypothetical) children how to live and when to take responsibility for their actions when they’re children, and you get to take responsibility for yourself, but you don’t get to tell every woman in VA the best way to “take responsibility” for for her “behavior” (I put behavior in quotes because the way you wrote it makes it sound like automatic BAD behavior, which is not appropriate.)
Can the GOP finally give up the charade of being about liberty and personal freedom?
American Taliban indeed.
@ Hayley
It’s not my intent to suggest intimacy is bad at all. But there’s a huge divide between intimacy between two married people and drunken hookup sex. Which do you think is responsible for more abortions?
I’d be curious to know where you feel the line is drawn when it comes to laws on responsible behavior. I feel it is appropriate here in the abortion debate because it involves more than the two people who have sex.. there’s a third person created and I believe that entity has rights.
I think the reason the abortion debate is so contentious is because it delves into territory we don’t understand and not knowing makes us uncomfortable. We don’t know what life or existence really is… because of that I think it’s far more practical and realistic to say it starts at conception instead of choosing some arbitrary point during gestation that makes us still be ok with the idea of terminating it. People who are against abortion aren’t about telling what a woman what to do with her body, they are about protecting the life/entity that she’s helped create. Do you feel a mother should be able to kill her infant because it was created in her womb? To those who are against abortion there’s no difference.
For those of you who want to join us there’s a march on the capitol on Monday at 11am:
https://www.facebook.com/events/187137214719838/
So far almost 2000 people have signed up. Stand up for your rights, stand up for the rights of your mothers, sisters, wives, daughters, friends. Women are not second class citizens, and you can’t control me or my body via legislation.
Jeff:
“I’d be curious to know where you feel the line is drawn when it comes to laws on responsible behavior.”
—> I believe that sex should be done responsibly and that a drunken hookup can be responsible if the parties are using protection. I believe it’s dangerous to try to make laws that restrict people when it’s involving consensual sexual behavior.
“I feel it is appropriate here in the abortion debate because it involves more than the two people who have sex.. there’s a third person created and I believe that entity has rights.”
——>Your argument that it involves a third person depends on the idea of when life begins, which is a huge debate that I don’t think we can resolve in an online news thread. I believe that a woman’s rights should not be overruled by whatever rights are given to a fetus she’s carrying. In the same way a father cannot be forced to donate a kidney to his son, a mother should not be forced to do things with her body “for the sake” of a fetus if she doesn’t want to.
“I think the reason the abortion debate is so contentious is because it delves into territory we don’t understand and not knowing makes us uncomfortable. We don’t know what life or existence really is… because of that I think it’s far more practical and realistic to say it starts at conception instead of choosing some arbitrary point during gestation that makes us still be ok with the idea of terminating it.”
—-> The problem with starting at conception is that honestly, you may not even know exactly when implantation/conception begins (unless you’re charting your cycles and temperature every morning and can see a possible implantation dip….but I doubt everyone is doing this). So even *then* it’s a fuzzy line. I have a problem giving a brainless bunch of cells full personhood rights. Once there’s a brain and maybe a heartbeat, I’m on a different page. But that’s just me and I don’t think my non-medical stance should be a law on the books, just as I don’t think yours should. A big issue is that we seem to be having a lot of medical issues being decided on by non-medical people. The state should not become women’s physicians, regardless of morality arguments.
“People who are against abortion aren’t about telling what a woman what to do with her body, they are about protecting the life/entity that she’s helped create.”
—-> But if that’s at the expense of a woman’s rights, then how is that fair? The woman was once an entity too. Still is. So when did her rights become less important than the new entity?
“Do you feel a mother should be able to kill her infant because it was created in her womb? To those who are against abortion there’s no difference.”
—-> I believe a woman should be able to exercise the right that is legally hers. Abortion is legal, therefore I think she should be able to. When it becomes illegal, then we can start preventing women from having abortions.
I think a pregnancy that ends in the first trimester is a very different situation than a pregnancy that ends much later. I had a miscarriage at a few weeks, and I don’t feel that I lost a child. I feel that I lost a potential child, and with that there’s still grief, but I do see a difference. I’m not sure if that’s what you’re asking?
A baby that’s been born is obviously a child and obviously what you’re saying would be murder. But a life that ends at, say, 2 weeks past implantation? I think it’s fair to say that there’s a difference between a crying baby and a tiny mass of cells without form. I think it’s ludicrous to say that something that ends with a very heavy period for two weeks (as was my experience) is the same as a living breathing infant being murdered.
@ Jeff
P.S. “The majority (61%) of U.S. women who have abortions are already mothers, more than half of whom have two or more children. In many cases, women choose abortion because they are motivated to be good parents. Women who have no children want the conditions to be right when they do; women who already have children want to be responsible and take care of their existing children.”
-http://www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/2008/01/07/index.html
I would therefore dispute your argument that the majority of cases come from drunken hookups. Seems unlikely that people engaging in lots of drunken hookups are parents already, far more likely that they are in relationships of some kind. (For the record, I think that a woman shouldn’t have to defend her legal decision to have a legal abortion. But there you go.)
I’m not debating whether or not a woman currently has the legal right to an abortion. That is undisputed. I’m challenging the foundation of that belief. To simply point to Roe v. Wade as some untouchable decision is flawed. I’m sure there are many who think abortion is fine but think guns should be banned even though it states clearly in our Constitution, an even more solid foundation, that we have the right to bear them. Supreme Court decisions are overturned, amendments are made. We only hope that when such actions take place they are based on a solid foundation. Since we don’t know what life is or when it begins we’ll never reach an agreement though I do tend to believe that pro-abortion folks choose a personally convenient but less realistic definition of life. There is no possible place during gestation to decide that the entity is suddenly a being with rights. Fertilization seems to be the more logical, ethical, and compassionate point to say that a”life” has been created. Based on such, we should start moving the “choice” to the when, with whom, and how of the decision to have sex as opposed to waiting after the fact and making the unsupportable claim that the thing we are killing is not a alive. Liberal leaning people seem capable of extending compassion to a planet, a hunk of elements with no consciousness and are fine with taking away a person’s choice to do any number of things if it means “saving” it. Why aren’t they capable of doing the same for an embryo?
But when we have leaders who are very clearly trying to create barriers to access to legal things, then I think we have a problem. If it’s a legal healthcare related issue, I think the healthcare providers ought to be the ones making decisions on waiting periods and ultrasounds, not a bunch of men who have never taken a medical course in their lives.
When life begins is, as I said before, a huge philosophical question and I simply don’t think it’s as easy as saying it begins at fertilization. If, for example, life begins at fertilization, if a woman has a miscarriage two weeks later, why does she not have to bury it as she would a person? I find it difficult to say that a being without a brain or heart should be considered a person. Perhaps we need to define what a person means (since clearly we seem to also think corporations can be defined as people…and I think that’s also BS since they also don’t have individual heartbeats or brains).
The same “no compassion” argument could be used for Conservatives who, as soon as a child is born, seem to no longer want to help (judging by stances on welfare, etc). It’s sort of a cheap shot to state such a blanket statement as saying ALL liberals show no compassion, just as it would be a cheat shot to say all Conservatives want a theocracy.
I think it’s a good idea to teach good choices, but ultimately, people are going to have sex, and sex is going to cause babies. I believe children should be wanted and a child shouldn’t be considered a punishment, a “you made your bed now lie in it” prize. Because, as you say, a child is a person. So it seems pretty dispassionate to treat a child like a ‘take responsibility for your behavior’ prize. (And I don’t see a ton of Conservatives stepping up to the plate to adopt the children who are given away. I see a lot of outside-the-US adoptions, though. I say that coming from a churched background and in my experience, I know of exactly two children who were fostered and then adopted from within the US — and one adopting family was Mennonite, so not even in the mainstream). Your compassion argument just seems pretty frail; I think we can reasonably agree that there are compassionate people who are compassionate about people on both sides.
Teaching good choices is a good thing. But ultimately, I think it’s bad for society when you say you have to make X choice, or else you get no support.
@ Hayley, when talking about conservatives, liberals or any other big political label, there’s plenty of hypocrisy to go around. I don’t agree with the idea that we should force women to have an unwanted child and then not give them any kind of assistance. Again though we reach into philosophical territory. What if that parent, after looking at the ultrasound of her baby to see all the things that make it alive, accepts responsibility for the child, nurtures the child instead of resenting it, and the child grows up to live a happy and normal life? Or what if the mother as expected, can’t or doesn’t take proper care of the child and the child grows into a person who transcends their past and helps others who have been through similar circumstances? My point is that there is no way to determine the outcome or worthiness of a life before it is ever lived. I was likely at risk for abortion seeing as my parents were both single at the time of my conception but I have no regrets for having had a chance at this life. I would imagine most people would answer that same.
On the other hand do we ever look at the flip side of this? Our current tax and welfare systems award people for having children. I don’t think it’s at all outlandish to suggest that women who don’t want children are having them anyway to get the tax breaks and the extra social welfare that they entail. Is there any outrage over the suffering of these neglected children, created by government incentives under the guise of compassion?
We’re an imperfect people with an imperfect form of government. Abortion IMO should not be an easy or uncomplicated choice and if we increase the value of life and make sex a more sacred/intimate act as opposed to the pre-packaged, shallow garbage it’s become in our society, perhaps it will become a choice fewer and fewer people have to make.
There are a lot of what-ifs. I like to side in favor of the mother that we know beyond shadow of a doubt is a living thinking entity than to side with the being that may or may not be a person. And you’re right, there’s no way to know. That’s something we cannot change — there will be good outcomes of kids who aren’t aborted, and there will also be bad outcomes. You can’t look at all the people who weren’t aborted who had good outcomes and make the call. That’s only looking at one demographic.
I think if women were actually having children just for the tax breaks, we would see a lot more wealthy women with many children. But we don’t. We DO see poor women with multiple children, though. “Repeated studies show no correlation between benefit levels and women’s choice to have children. (See, for example, Urban Institute Policy and Research Report, Fall/93.) States providing relatively higher benefits do not show higher birth rates among recipients.
In any case, welfare allowances are far too low to serve as any kind of “incentive”: A mother on welfare can expect about $90 in additional AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) benefits if she has another child.
Furthermore, the real value of AFDC benefits, which do not rise with inflation, has fallen 37 percent during the last two decades (The Nation, 12/12/94). Birth rates among poor women have not dropped correspondingly.
The average family receiving AFDC has 1.9 children — about the same as the national average.”
The problem with saying sex is sacred is that you’re straying into a religious territory (or at least, the use of such a loaded religious word makes me think that). You can view sex as sacred, but that doesn’t mean everyone should, or will, or making everyone behave as though it is an absolute sacred thing is pushing your theological (I presume?) ideals on everyone. Sex between two unmarried people is not always “shallow garbage”, and saying so is incredibly limiting. Yes, TV shows show us flippant sex, and I think that’s okay too. People should have the right to decide how they view sex and how they want it to play a role in their lives. That’s what freedom is all about, Charlie Brown.
Time and time again throughout history, people have tried to regulate sex. And people will still have a lot of sex. And it won’t all be sacred or intimate, so rather than try to regulate the sex, it seems beneficial to look at the state of things realistically and see how we can make the outcomes best for women and their current children, rather than just potential children alone.
@Jeff, no one is “pro-abortion.” Those who are in favor of legalized abortion also favor better sex education and access to birth control — prevention of pregnancy is better than termination. Also, a zygote or fetus is not an infant. So please check your rhetoric.
I always find it interesting when men get heavily involved in shutting down abortion rights because it is entirely a theoretical argument for them. The closest one can get is that you may have a very close relationship with a female who is considering abortion, but it will never be an option you yourself are ever forced to confront for any reason.
@ Hayley, I’ve never suggested regulating sex. Passing a law saying sex should be more “intimate” would be ridiculous. Any real changes need to happen on the societal level, requiring a reorganization of our own attitudes and beliefs about sex and its consequences. Yes, I 100% believe that we have too flippant an attitude about sex and that this has led to the millions of abortions we see yearly. It’s a Catch 22 really. I think we both want the same thing, fewer abortions, but taking the attitude that abortion is untouchable only ensures the status quo will continue. The only thing that will truly decrease the number of abortions IMO is the realization that creating a life comes with some accountability… becoming a mother and father. But I don’t think a wholesale ban on abortions is the answer either. The transition will realistically take a lot of time. Small steps, like connecting the would be mother with the fetus/embryo/zygote.. whatever terminology makes you feel more comfortable.. via an ultrasound could be one of those steps.
@Kat, you’re right, I can never know what it’s like to make that choice. I had a very close friend recently who was going to have to face that decision and she dreaded it. The problem with our current stance on abortion is that because it is so accepted and accessible, too many are waiting to make their “choice” after conception instead of before.
Anyway, I’m sure I’m not winning any hearts here. I’m just a dude after all. I will say I’m glad that what is almost always a heated debate didn’t devolve into vicious name calling. Best of luck!
So let me get this right Jeff E: you are against aborting a tiny mass of cells that doesn’t have a heartbeat or a brain, but you are FOR having guns because it’s you’re Constitutional right – even though guns are used to murder people??? That doesn’t make sense!
A tiny mass of cells according to you, a life according to me. Just because you aren’t capable of connecting those cells to a human being doesn’t mean it isn’t “alive”. Whatever line you try to draw for defining life, which I’m sure in your case would come much later in gestation, it is still drawn at your personal convenience and does necessarily reflect reality. Pro-life people simply err on the side of caution on an issue that has no easy answer. I don’t see anywhere I was advocating gun ownership, I was merely using the Constitution as an example for the basis of our laws and illustrating how Roe v Wade, which is treated by many as untouchable, is on shakier legal ground than gun ownership.
Why is it Republican men feel they have duty to tell women what they can do withtheir God-given bodies? This paternalistic behavior never flew and never will. It is stupid, illogical, misogynistic, illegal, immoral, anti freedom and definitely un- American. Women unite- if those little boys sponsoring and voting for this bill persevere in its pursuit, its time to spank them!
ladies, have no sex with republican men. Create laws requiring prostate exams
for all republican men- preferably, annually, It’s for their own good.
Push for a law forbidding all male masturbation- countless potential lives are
exterminated this way by males throughout their lives- that is mass murder
of unborn children. All men, and especially republicans practice it
Remember women of Virginia, you have rights too- if you lose yours- take away
the rights of misogynists. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander!