I haven’t gotten my shit together with posting twice a week, but I’ll get there.
Why is Virginia important to this discussion? Abortion is legal in Virginia.
Well, you know what, there is currently a 15-week ban on abortion in Florida. The Florida Supreme Court is currently trying to decide if the 15-week ban is constitutional or not. If they decide it is, then the 6-week abortion ban that passed in the Florida state legislature and was signed into law by DeSantis in April of 2023 will then go into effect after 30 days. The 15-week ban is currently in effect in Florida and it could become a 6-week ban in the next few weeks.
According to the Guttmacher Institute “Abortion bans are clustered in the South and Southeast (seen in map below) and Florida is now the only state in the region offering care after 12 weeks. The number of abortions increased by 15% for the January to June 2023 period compared with a similar time frame in 2020. Increased travel from out-of-state individuals accounted for 65% of the overall increase.”
Do you know where these women will now have to travel to get abortions if the 6-week ban takes effect in Florida?
Yes, that’s right. Virginia. Virginia is the only state in the south that hasn’t made abortion regulations stricter since Roe was overturned in June of 2022.
That means it may be harder to get an appointment to get an abortion in Virginia if you live here. It also means women will have to travel even further to get care that they should be able to get in their home state.
What are the laws in Virginia anyway?
The current law in Virginia is that abortion is legal until 26 weeks and 6 days. After 26 weeks and 6 days, a woman cannot get an abortion unless the abortion will save her life or preserve her health. This requires that three physicians sign off stating that carrying the pregnancy will harm her life or health.
If the pregnant individual is under the age of 18, a parent, grandparent or adult sibling who lives in their home must give permission and that same individual must be notified within 24 hours before the abortion occurs. A judge can excuse both by judicial bypass in certain cases.
There are no required counseling sessions. There are no waiting periods.
When you hear “abortion up until birth,” know that that is not a thing. In fact, no clinic in Virginia will perform an abortion after 21 weeks and 6 days for elective purposes. Some hospitals will provide abortion services for patients between 22 and 26 weeks if there are fetal anomalies. A woman cannot get an abortion after 26 weeks in Virginia. The hospital that provides services for 22–26-week abortions refers women out after 26 weeks and they are not referred to anywhere in Virginia.
Due to abortion bans in most other states in the south, the abortion rate in Virginia is rising. Women are coming to Virginia to get care. This influx of cases causes delays for women in Virginia trying to get abortions early in their pregnancies.
It was only a few months ago that the Republican Governor of Virginia was talking about a 15-week ban. I mention the 15-week ban because that was part of what Glenn Youngkin, Republican Governor of Virginia, said he would try to pass if both houses of the Virginia state legislature went Republican in the November 2023 election. The “15-week consensus” is just a “ban” in less offensive terms. The “consensus” or “limit” language still being used by Republicans now and is supposed to make voters think that Republicans are being more reasonable on their restrictions on abortion. Most women have a full anatomy scan (ultrasound) around the 20th week of pregnancy. This means that if there are fetal anomalies, they wouldn’t even know about it until after it is too late to have an abortion even though the pregnancy is not viable.
In Virginia, if there are fetal anomalies that would cause a woman to desire termination, and she finds out at 20 weeks, then she has less than 6 weeks to find a physician that will perform the abortion, and sometimes an abortion at this stage is a multi-day procedure, so she probably has less than 5 weeks to obtain the abortion.
Both houses of the Virginia state legislature are now dominated by Democrats. This happened in the November 2023 election. Since it was an off-off year election (no President or Governor on the ballot), it was important to get voters out to protect choice and they did.
Voters opposed the 15-week ban. There was no guarantee that if there was a Republican trifecta in the Virginia legislature that they wouldn’t have pursued bans on abortion after 12 weeks or after 6 weeks or bans on abortion medication or bans on birth control methods that they consider to be abortifacients (IUDs, emergency contraception and any form of hormonal birth control like the pill or shots or implants).
So, this is why we need to be concerned in Virginia and become more aware of what is going on in other states, especially the rest of the states in the south.
What can you do to ensure abortion stays legal in Virginia and help women in other states?
Find out who your US representative is and how they vote. All of the US representatives are up for election in 2024. Find My Rep
Ask your friends and family members who support choice if they know who their representative is and how they vote. My representative is Rob Wittman. He claims he is 100% pro-life, but doesn’t say exactly what that means. He doesn’t say exactly what “limit” he supports or if he would support exceptions. He was adopted and I guess he assumes he would have been aborted if his biological mother had a choice. I am working to make sure all of my fellow constituents know that he does not think a woman should be able to make a choice about her own body. I support his mother’s choice to have him if that is what she really wanted. He doesn’t support my right to choice even if I get raped.
Support abortion funds that help women without means to get abortions and resources to travel if necessary. Got to the website for the National Network of Abortion Funds to find funds in Virginia and other states.
Educate yourself on what is going on around you related to abortion and make sure those women in your circle (sisters, daughters, nieces, friends) know.
Excellent and inspirational. More of us need to take notice and take action.
Amy, thank you for posting about this important topic. We have to get the truth out to protect all women.