Virginia must safeguard reproductive health access
In the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn 50 years of precedent in the Dobbs decision, reformminded prosecutors from across the country banded together to say with one voice: We will not prosecute women or doctors for making the health care decisions that were protected by Roe v. Wade. Holding such unique power to only bring cases they see fit, prosecutors can use their discretion to prevent these bad-faith laws from criminalizing a woman’s right to reproductive care. As the last bastion of reproductive freedom in the South, we have a responsibility to protect a woman’s right to choose in the commonwealth.
When we stood up for reproductive freedom in the days after Roe fell, we were called alarmists. We were told we were overreacting. We were told there was nothing to be afraid of, and that nothing would change. In the end, we were right. Not only are women’s rights to carry a pregnancy under threat, but so is the very right to conceive a child through in vitro fertilization, as we have seen in Alabama. The right to become parents through IVF is particularly precious to our citizens; the first IVF baby conceived and born in America was here in Norfolk.
Virginia must continue to lead as a protector of reproductive choice. That’s why bills such as Senate Bill 15, introduced by Sen. Barbara Favola, will protect women who seek reproductive care in Virginia if they run afoul of other states’ draconian anti-abortion laws. Under this legislation, the governor will be prohibited from extraditing women to other states if those states seek to prosecute them for seeking reproductive care in Virginia.
As elected commonwealth’s attorneys serving diverse jurisdictions on opposite ends of the state, we’re well aware of the role prosecutors will play in the executing — or standing up against — these new paradigms. In the last year and a half, we’ve seen at least 21 other states further restrict access to abortion. In February, our own House of Delegates debated a near-total ban on abortion. This is just one of the most recent anti-choice, antiwomen bills we’ve seen — but there are so many more. And with a governor who has said he is “staunchly, unabashedly” against abortion and fully committed to “going on the offense” against abortion rights, our legislature has the important job of stopping him in his tracks. Our legislative “Blue Wall” held in Richmond, and we thank them. Should Virginia ever go backward, we local prosecutors will guard the last line of defense.
In the last 20 months, we’ve seen disastrous consequences in states that have legislated away a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions. In July 2022, less than a month after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, a 10-year-old girl from Ohio sought an abortion in Indiana due to Ohio’s strict abortion rules. In the days that followed, the attorneys general of both Ohio and Indiana attempted to discredit the story and harass the doctor that performed the abortion.
And now, some of our representatives in the House of Delegates and Virginia Senate are trying to bring these extremist laws to Virginia. After failing to enact their near-total abortion ban earlier in February, Virginia Republicans proposed a bill restricting public funding for abortion services, even in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is at risk. Thankfully, the House of Delegates defeated this legislation, and once again safeguarded a woman’s right to choose in Virginia.
We’re fighting for SB15, and other bills safeguarding abortion access, to become law to further cement Virginia’s status as a safe haven for women seeking to make their own medical decisions. This bill will ensure that women who seek to terminate a pregnancy — for any reason — aren’t subject to the rules and regulations of other states with overzealous laws that place politicians between women and their doctors.