While Ohio Governor John Kasich continues to face fire from abortion advocates for signing a restrictive new abortion law, lawmakers here in Virginia aim to follow in his foot steps during the 2017 General Assembly next month.



While Ohio Governor John Kasich continues to face fire from abortion advocates for signing a restrictive new abortion law, lawmakers here in Virginia aim to follow in his foot steps during the 2017 General Assembly next month.

Delegate Dave LaRock of Hamilton, (R-33), has resubmitted HB 1473, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would limit abortions in the Commonwealth to 20 weeks. Currently Virginia allows abortions through the second trimester, but abortions after the first trimester must be undertaken at a hospital, something advocates say is an undo burden on women.

“It’s something that absolutely needs to pass,” said Del. LaRock in an interview with RVAMag. He described himself as a member of society and a father, and once he learned the specifics of a abortion after 20 weeks he said he had to do something.

“I’m very much of the mind to subject a baby to a dismemberment abortion… while it’s alive in a mother’s womb, is nothing short of a gruesome treatment of babies and I think its very appropriate to criminalize it,” he said.

How much pain a fetus feels during an abortion after 20 weeks is something Factcheck.org has trouble really confirming. They say science exists on both sides, and “pain is a subjective experience and a fetus cannot indicate if something hurts.”

LaRock’s bill mirrors one signed into law in at least 19 other states, though courts have blocked the law in three.

Similar bills have been pushed every year, including the last two years by LaRock, here in Virginia since at least 2012 but all have failed.

One of the issues the bill faced last year was its lack of exceptions for rape or incest, something Tara Gibson, State-wide field director for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia, said could be a problem again this year.

Gibson said the 2016 bill failed its first committee step when even Republican legislators took issue with its lack of exceptions. But with the OH bill getting signed by Kaisch similarly not allowing such exceptions, she noted “It’s hard to predict the outcome.”

While LaRock admits whats happens in OH doesn’t necessarily happen in VA, he also thinks its success shows “it’s not only a good bill, its durable.”

And as for the lack of exceptions for rape and incest, LaRock said he views an abortion after 20 weeks as only adding to the crime.

“These are very difficult situations for the women to be in, and I think its fair and right that no baby… should be subjected to this torturous death,” he said. “I have all the sympathy in the world for a woman in that situation but making the baby the second victim in that situation does make it right.”

But Gibson doesn’t buy that – she sees it as “another in a long line of attacks against women’s health care.”

“We’re going to do everything we can to make sure the bill does not become a law as we did last year [when] it was to extreme for even the GA here in VA,” she said. “But we’re still disheartened to see it come up again and see legislators once again lining up to limit women’s access to healthcare and abortions.”

Wile Virginia remains below the national average for number of abortions, it does have some other notable requirements before the procedure can take place: There is a 24 hour waiting period, parents of a minor must be notified, and a woman must receive an ultrasound and be offered to view the fetus before the abortion can be performed.

Virginia also passed TRAP laws which activists say put undo burdens and unnecessary medical and physical requirements on women’s health clinics, forcing three facilities to close.

While Gibson and her group hope the committee assigned this bill will again toss it aside, she’s confident Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe will veto any bill that rolls back abortion laws in the state. She called McAuliffe a “brick wall” against new limits and his record, including vetoing a bill in 2016 which would have defunded Planned Parenthood, suggests he’d stop any new legislation like this that would make it to his desk.

RVAMag will follow this bill as it reaches the GA in a few weeks.