In 2003, Virginia passed a ban on abortion, deceptively called "the partial-birth infanticide" act. The statute prohibits doctors from performing the safest abortion procedures used as early as 12 weeks of pregnancy. Like the Federal Abortion Ban upheld by the Supreme Court in April 2007, the law fails to provide an exception if a woman's health is at stake, but unlike the federal statute, it is substantially broader and vaguer. The law would effectively outlaw the most common abortion second-trimester procedures performed in the state and its prohibition is so broadly written that doctors could even face criminal prosecution for attending to women who have miscarried. Doctors could face a felony conviction for violating the law with the threat of 10 years imprisonment and a possible fine of up to $100,000.
