A Day That Will Live in Infamy in Virginia
April 10th, 2020, is a day that will forever live in infamy in our beloved Commonwealth.
On Good Friday, of all days, Governor Northam signed into law HB 980 (D-Herring) and the identical Senate version SB 733 (D-McClellan), stripping away decades of hard-fought critical protections for unborn babies, and for women who are considering and who ultimately choose to have an abortion. Even as despicable as this was, it is sadly not surprising given that the Governor, a pediatric neurologist by trade, has endorsed – and even doubled down on – the practice of infanticide and made known his support for unrestricted abortions, while all the elected leadership of his party stood firmly behind him.
If the bill’s substance wasn’t bad enough, it’s nothing short of unconscionable for the Governor to act with such sacrilege by choosing to sign these bills on the very day Christians worldwide remember the sacrificial death of our sinless Lord for the sins of all mankind. It’s hard to fathom how this could have been merely coincidental.
As you no doubt recall in 2019, the abortion industry, with the aid of Delegate Kathy Tran (D-Fairfax), tried to push for all of these destructive policies (and more), but their effort failed in an embarrassing fashion because of a pro-life majority in the legislature. But after pouring millions of dollars into the Virginia elections this past fall to help the majority change hands, the abortion industry received as its reward legislation that shields them from virtually all accountability and oversight from the state, which experience shows us will only subject women to even greater harm.
In a single session, Governor Northam and his abortion industry friends have erased decades of common-sense and needed protections for the unborn and their mothers.
Here are the main results of HB 980 and SB 733:
All basic health and safety regulations for abortion facilities are completely eliminated.
Nurse practitioners and nurse midwives – not just physicians – can now conduct invasive abortion procedures.
Virtually all requirements of informed consent prior to an abortion have been eliminated, including: an ultrasound prior an abortion, which was required to be offered to the woman to view, as well as an offer for her to hear the fetal heart tone; literature describing the gestational time frame, with pictures; a discussion of alternatives to abortion including adoption; information about the risks of the procedure; and more.
The required 24-hour wait period between the ultrasound and the abortion has been eliminated.
In his press release, Governor Northam stated that these bills remove “medically-unnecessary restrictions on women’s healthcare,” obviously ignoring the thousands of egregious health and safety violations the state Health Department has cited in its periodic inspection reports of Virginia’s abortion centers since 2012. He then had the audacity to say, “The Reproductive Health Protection Act will make women and families safer, and I’m proud to sign it into law.” Of course, there was no indication whatsoever of how gutting informed consent and eliminating every basic health and safety standard makes women and families safer.
These bills will unquestionably lead Virginia down the dark path of creating safe-havens for the next Kermit Gosnell or Ulrich Klopfer who’ll jeopardize the lives of women and engage in gruesome practices all in the name of convenience and higher profits. They also reveal the true deviousness of the abortion industry that we’ve warned about by eliminating any effort to fully inform women about the procedure and their associated risks – because there are a number of health risks!
The Governor has gone to great lengths to inform the public on ways to prevent the spread of COVID-19, but that same kind of courtesy isn’t extended to women considering the life-altering decision of abortion. But that’s how the abortion industry operates – they manipulate and deceive vulnerable women by withholding valuable information.
Since 1985, The Family Foundation has made defending the life of unborn babies from the horrific practice of abortion a cornerstone of our mission. We’ve worked hard to advance policies that better enable women to escape from the false promises of Planned Parenthood and its cohorts, and even to make sure that the mothers who do make the unfortunate choice to abort their child are at least assured some basic health and safety measures. Over the years, we’ve had some amazing victories, even under some of the most challenging circumstances, which gives us great hope that when the political climate changes we will gain back what was lost this year.
Please continue to pray for these vulnerable women who’ll be subjected to more of the abortion industry’s unrestrained deceit and manipulation, and especially for the pregnancy resource centers all over Virginia that seek to provide love and guidance to these mothers.
The fight for life and family continues. Please keep fighting with us.
