On Friday, as Virginia struggled with the global coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Ralph Northam (D-Va.) signed a bill striking down a wide range of restrictions on the practice of killing unborn babies.
“No more will legislators in Richmond—most of whom are men—be telling women what they should and should not be doing with their bodies,” Northam said in a statement. “The Reproductive Health Protection Act will make women and families safer, and I’m proud to sign it into law.”
Senate Bill 733 and House Bill 980, sponsored by Senator Jennifer McClellan and House Majority Leader Charniele Herring, respectively, repeal Virginia’s mandatory ultrasound law and the requirement that women have to wait 24 hours before getting an abortion. These two bills together form the “Virginia Reproductive Health Protection Act,” which also strikes down mandates that abortion facilities provide information about a baby’s development in the womb, information about how babies are killed in the womb, and alternatives to abortion.
Democrats celebrated the easing of restrictions on baby-killing.
“This is about protecting Virginians’ health, rights, and basic dignity,” McClellan said. “Today, we have finally put an end to these medically unnecessary barriers to women’s reproductive health care. Politicians should not interfere in women’s personal medical decisions, period.”
“Virginia women deserve access to healthcare free from interference from politicians,” Herring declared. “Simply, this bill rolls back restrictions that are not evidence-based and presume that women have an inability to make their own healthcare decisions. I’m glad to see this bill signed into law.”
Yet the information abortion facilities were previously required to offer women was “evidence-based” — the pamphlets just made it clear that the “fetus” is not merely a clump of cells, but a developing human being.
Northam may think abortion restrictions are sexist, but they protect unborn baby girls just like unborn baby boys. The point is not to limit women’s health care but to protect human beings, who have complete and unique human DNA from the moment of conception. If abortion is to remain legal, laws requiring abortion facilities to carry materials explaining the biological reality of fetal development are not an impediment to women’s health — but they may encourage some women to reconsider their decision to have an abortionist kill their unborn babies.
The governor, a physician, has defended infanticide. In fact, one of his former fellow students at medical school was so outraged by those remarks that he went public with the photo on Northam’s yearbook page showing one man in blackface and the other in a Ku Klux Klan hood.
Just as doctors are working hard to save lives in the coronavirus crisis, Gov. Northam is making it easier for abortionists to take lives. Meanwhile, abortionists are using valuable personal protective equipment (PPE) during the crisis.
Tyler O’Neil is the author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Follow him on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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