Sound Reforms To Virginia Abortion Law Produce Winger Hysteria
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President Donald Trump and dozens of other conservatives are weighing in about a Virginia abortion bill that modestly loosens restrictions around later abortions, falsely characterizing it as “infanticide.”
“God, help us. Virginia bill would legalize abortion up to birth,” tweeted president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Albert Mohler. If you Google “Kathy Tran,” who’s Virginia’s first Asian-American female delegate and sponsor of the abortion bill, you’ll see dozens of reactions like this, many even cruder.
Virginia lawmakers aren’t trying to legalize abortion up to birth. In fact, the bill keeps Virginia’s narrow exceptions for later abortions, saying a licensed provider can only perform a third-trimester abortion if they believe the pregnancy will result in death or impair the person’s mental or physical health. The bill just strikes the language “substantially and irremediably,” as such terms overly regulate a doctor’s professional opinion.
Through these modifications, Democratic lawmakers are better aligning Virginia law with other state laws, as the bill also changes current state law around third-trimester abortions by reducing the number of doctors who need to sign off on the procedure from three to one. Only Virginia and two other states — Montana and North Dakota — require three physicians to sign off on later abortions, according to Elizabeth Nash, who tracks state policies for the Guttmacher Institute.
This a perfectly sensible reform, the idea that “third trimester abortions are only legal if determined by a physician to be medically necessary” means Democrats favor INFANTICIDE is nuts, and the idea that women in Virginia will now get lots of third trimester abortions for the hell of it is sexist twaddle.