- Last night, Virginia’s Senate passed an unconstitutional bill banning abortion, which fails to adequately protect women’s health. Virginia’s abortion ban violates the right of women to have the safest and most appropriate medical procedure to protect her health guaranteed by the U.S. Supreme Court, which struck down a similar abortion ban in a case argued by the Center for Rights in 2000.
The bill now moves to the desk of Governor Mark Warner, who during his campaign pledged to sign an abortion ban as long as it would withstand legal scrutiny, which this bill clearly fails to do.
"The Virginia legislature has again passed an unconstitutional abortion ban despite clear instructions from the Supreme Court that women’s health must prevail over anti-abortion politics," said Janet Crepps, staff attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights. The Center for Reproductive Rights successfully challenged Virginia’s first abortion ban, which was struck down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in August 2000.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Stenberg v. Carhart (2000), striking down Nebraska’s abortion ban, makes clear that any ban on abortion procedures must contain a health exception broad enough to allow the procedure when the woman’s physician believes it is the safest and most appropriate in her circumstances.
Virginia’s health exception is inadequate because the bill allows the banned procedures only when the woman suffers from a medical condition so serious that the procedure is necessary "in order to avert her death or avoid a serious risk of the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function."
An Ohio law containing a nearly identical exception was found unconstitutional by a federal district court last year on the grounds that the bill does not meet the requirements set forth by the Supreme Court in the Nebraska case. That case is currently pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
