Virginia Senate Democrats defeat several bills that would have restricted abortion access in the state, including a proposed 15-week ban with exceptions that was a priority for Republican Gov. Youngkin.
They are the first decisive legislative votes in Virginia since the Supreme Court’s decision last year overturning Roe v. Wade. The votes mean that barring an extraordinary procedural move, such restrictions are unlikely to be enacted this year in Virginia, which currently has some of the South’s most permissive abortion laws.
Republican House Speaker Todd Gilbert said earlier this year that given Virginia’s divided government, he didn’t expect major progress on abortion this year. On Thursday, the Senate Committee on Education and Health, which Lucas chairs, voted the three measures down on a party-line basis and without debate after a subcommittee had previously heard testimony and recommended that they be defeated.
It would have allowed abortions through the second trimester before viability, defined as either 24 weeks or 22 weeks, if three physicians agree. “All three of the dangerous anti-abortion proposals before this committee represented grave threats to Virginians’ health and rights, and we are thrilled to now celebrate their defeat,” Jamie Lockart, the executive director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia, said in a statement.
One Democratic senator, Joe Morrissey, has previously indicated a willingness to support additional abortion restrictions, even through the use of an unusual floor procedure that before Rouse’s victory potentially could have allowed the Republican lieutenant governor to cast a tie-breaking vote.
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