Reproductive Rights and the Virginia 2013 General Assembly Session

The unconstitutionality of 20 week abortion bans

Bills to Oppose:
Limits on Contraception Coverage: HB 1314, HB 1315, and HB 1417 HB 1314 and HB 1315 conflict with the new federal rule that requires employers (with exemptions for religiously affiliated organizations) to provide health insurance coverage for contraception under the Affordable Care Act by limiting how the new health care exchanges provide insurance coverage for contraception. This bill intends to discriminate against women and limit womens access to basic health services. Requiring coverage of contraception does not violate the First Amendment. At its core, religious freedom means that we are all free to make personal decisions based on our own beliefs and according to what is best for our health and the health of our families. It does not mean allowing particular religious groups to impose their religious beliefs and prohibitions on all of us. The bill intends to restrict access to contraception and other reproductive health services, limiting insurance coverage within the new state health care exchange under the Affordable Care Act, and, as such, violates the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution. In other words, the new federal rule trumps any state law such as this bill, yet the intent is nonetheless egregious to deny women access to basic reproductive health care. However the effect of this bill is this: If this bill passed, and the federal rule is changed or set aside by the courts, Virginia will have in place a state law that will limit access to birth control and other reproductive health services. HB 1417 provides that no health insurance plan offered by the Commonwealth to its state and local employees is required to include coverage for contraception. This bill attempts to allow a license to discriminate against women and limit womens access to basic health services. Virtually every woman, ages 15-44, who is sexually active has used birth control at some point in her life. That includes 98 percent of Catholic women. In fact, contraception is the norm for religious women. This legislation is not about religious liberty at all, but about whether individuals should have access to comprehensive health insurance coverage, and most pointedly, whether women should have insurance coverage for contraception. Your bosss morals should not be the arbiter of your health care access, just like employers should not be able to eschew minimum wage laws or other labor and employment protections out of moral opposition. Religious liberty means the right to hold to your beliefs, but not to impose them on others. Abortion Ban: HB 1316 HB 1316 is an abortion ban that imposes criminal penalties on physicians for knowing a womans intentions to terminate a pregnancy on the basis of sex. HB1316 reduces access to abortion services, invades womens privacy, and threatens the confidentiality of the doctor/patient relationship. The bill intrudes into the reasons behind a womans personal decision to have an abortion. The true purpose of this bill is to restrict access to abortion services. Under the guise of concern for gender discrimination, proponents of these bills often, ironically, vote against bills that strengthen gender equality. These bills are nothing more than a political tactic being used to chip away at the right to choose. If lawmakers are concerned about the inequality of women and girls, they should support policies that actually work (such as pay equity or civil rights laws). The hypocrisy of this so-called anti-discrimination bill is that it will not prevent sex-selection abortion, but will inevitably lead to racial profiling and force health care professionals to treat women of color as

automatically suspect. Abortion bans threaten women's lives and health by making safe and legal abortion harder to obtain especially for women of color. Under the threat of criminal prosecution for up to 10 years in prison, this bill discourages doctors from providing abortions in the Commonwealth to certain women, creating an environment of mistrust and thus reducing access to a safe, legal medical procedure. Repeal of Funding Fetal Anomaly Abortions for Low-Income Women: SB 826 SB 826 repeals abortion funding for low-income women when a physician certifies in writing that the fetus has an incapacitating physical or mental anomaly. If SB 826 is approved, Medicaid-eligible women in Virginia will have no option for a pregnancy in which the fetus has an incapacitating physical or mental anomaly. Every womans situation is different and many things can go wrong in a pregnancy. No woman plans to have an abortion, but if she needs one, every woman deserves the opportunity to make the best decision for her circumstances. SB 826 places no restrictions on women who can afford to pay for their own abortion and would deny poor women access to safe care, for no other reason than their poverty. Women of Virginia should not be denied necessary healthcare based upon their ability to pay and health care decisions are best made by individuals and their medical providers. Leaving poor women without financial assistance for safe and sometimes critical care threatens their wellbeing. These Medicaid-eligible women are by definition very poor, and SB 826s denial of care would exacerbate the crisis for those of them who decide they want to terminate the pregnancy. When a woman receives a catastrophic prenatal diagnosis, she should have the option that her wealthier counterparts enjoy to end the pregnancy safely and with dignity. This bill would force her to scramble for money she does not have, and therefore quite possibly carry to term. That is no way to treat a woman in a medical crisis. SB 826 places an undue burden on low-income women who already face decreased access to medical care. Instead of improving the health and safety of low-income women in Virginia, this bill removes another layer of health care from those already at risk.

Bills to Support:
Birth Control Protection Act: SB 783 The Code of Virginia does not distinguish between FDA-approved methods of contraception and abortion. In absence of a statutory definition, there have been attempts to blur the lines between contraception and abortion, as well as limit access to family planning services under the code section relating to abortion. For instance, in 2003, the Virginia House of Delegates passed HB 1741, a measure that enabled any Virginia pharmacist to refuse dispensing any medication prescribed for the purpose of performing an abortion. This measure targeted contraceptives since abortion medications are not dispensed at pharmacies and can only be administered by a licensed medical clinician. In order to ensure the lines between abortion and contraception are not blurred, SB 783 will define birth control in the Code of Virginia, saying that "Birth control" means contraceptive methods that are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and that birth control shall not be considered abortion.

Bills not yet filed at the time of publication of this fact sheet, but may be introduced:
Bills to Oppose: 20 Week Abortion Ban The so called Virginia Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act bans abortions at 20 weeks with unconstitutionally narrow exceptions for a womans life and health and with no exceptions for rape, incest or fetal anomaly. This bill,

meant as a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, could lead to an expensive and prolonged legal battle for Virginia. In fact, this bill establishes an unprecedented Litigation Fund for the Attorney General to use to defend this bill, providing evidence of the true intent of this bill. This bill is blatantly unconstitutional, prohibiting abortions when the Supreme Court has held that states may not do so and failing to protect womens health. This bill is political interference in a womans most personal, private medical decisions. Every pregnant womans circumstances are different and many things can go wrong in a pregnancy. We cannot presume to know all the circumstances surrounding a personal, medical decision to have an abortion. No woman plans to have an abortion, but if she needs one, every woman deserves the opportunity to make the best decision for her circumstances. This bill poses a serious threat to womens health, seeking to ban abortions pre-viability and before most serious complications are diagnosed, with only the most narrow of exceptions. Most women with high-risk pregnancies, who know that their lives or their fetuses are at risk, need to have every medical option including terminating the pregnancy available to consider in consultation with medical professionals, religious advisers, family members, friends, and other people they trust. The sponsors of this bill want to take medicine out of the hands of doctors and decisions out of the hands of women and their families. A woman facing pregnancy-related difficulties needs the best care she can get, not the governments interference in the doctor-patient relationship. Personhood Personhood bills require that all the laws of the Commonwealth be interpreted to grant fertilized eggs the same rights, privileges, and immunities, as people. This bill would have far reaching and dangerous consequences, impacting thousands of laws and putting the government, lawyers, and courts in the middle of our personal and private decisions. This bill would undermine the ability of women and family to make personal and private decisions by laying a legal foundation to outlaw abortions in Virginia in the event of a reversal of current Supreme Court precedent, even for rape or incest victims, or when the life of the woman is at risk. This bill could be used to ban commonly used FDA approved methods of birth control, including the pill and emergency contraception: If the Supreme Court ever reversed course in its interpretation of the definition of the word person, these methods of birth control could be banned. This bill could have far reaching, dangerous consequences on important life decisions Virginians make every day. For example, giving legal status to fertilized eggs could block stem cell research from being used for life-saving care; could endanger womens health and lives by interfering with doctors ability to treat miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies; could prevent couples from using in-vitro fertilization to have a family; and could even deny a pregnant woman life-saving medical treatment for a disease, like cancer, if the treatment might harm a fertilized egg. The bill has far-reaching, unforeseen consequences. Giving legal rights to fertilized eggs could impact literally thousands of laws from when property rights are granted, to inheritance rights, to who can file a lawsuit. It would allow lawyers and the courts to reinterpret every Virginia law and regulation that contains the word person, clogging up the court system at the expense of the Commonwealths taxpayers. Defunding Planned Parenthood Efforts to block Planned Parenthood patients from the health care provider they know and trust are not only deeply unpopular, they are unlawful. Federal courts around the country have said it is unacceptable, especially at a time when women need more access to health care, for a politician to tell women that they cannot go to Planned Parenthood health centers to get birth control, well-woman exams, or cancer screenings. Seven efforts to eliminate access to birth control, cancer screenings, and basic preventive health services at Planned Parenthood have been challenged in courts, and theyve been blocked nearly every time.
Virginia Pro-Choice Coalition ACLU of VA Virginia League of Women Voters Jewish Community Relations Council NARAL Pro-Choice VA National Assoc. of Social Workers National Council of Jewish Women of VA Planned Parenthood Advocates of VA Progress VA Virginia NOW Unite Women - VA