Abortion bill falters as Virginia governor backs away

RICHMOND

A Republican effort to require women to undergo an ultrasound before having an abortion is in serious jeopardy after Gov. Bob McDonnell backtracked on the issue and the author of the Senate version of the bill asked that her legislation be stricken.

McDonnell issued a statement prior to a House of Delegates debate on the issue Wednesday, saying he would not support forcing women to undergo an ultrasound in which a probe is inserted into the vagina. That is the common method of performing an ultrasound for women in the early stages of pregnancy.

Later in the afternoon, Sen. Jill Holtzman Vogel, R-Fauquier County, told the Senate that she will ask that her bill be stricken. Del. Mark D. Sickles, D-Fairfax County, said he believes her decision may signal the end of legislative efforts to mandate ultrasounds.

"Maybe we're about to celebrate a victory here," he said at a news conference after Wednesday's House session.

The ultrasound issue has become a national lightning rod. A protest against it and other anti-abortion measures on the Capitol grounds Monday drew nearly 1,000 people on Monday. And it's provided fodder for political commentators and comedians.

"Saturday Night Live," "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Rachel Maddow Show" on MSNBC have parodied the measure. Maddow recently displayed a vaginal probe with "I can see the White House from here" printed on the side, a jab at McDonnell's vice presidential prospects. Democratic members of the General Assembly have been interviewed on half a dozen national news shows on CBS, CNN and other networks.

"We've been the butt of jokes from coast to coast," Sickles said.

Vogel's bill and similar measures were presented by their sponsors as means to ensure that women were fully informed before agreeing to an abortion. Vogel said Wednesday that conflicting advice from people on both sides of the issue led her to begin to have doubts about her bill, SB484.

She said she was "not ashamed to stand up in front of my colleagues - and some I know who will be very upset with me for doing this - and admit if I don't know the answer and if I don't have all the answers."

In an interview after the session, she said, "I have a lot of sensitivity to all those issues" being raised by opponents. "I didn't believe I could continue to carry the bill with all the current questions out there."

Del. Kathy J. Byron, R-Campbell County, sponsored a similar ultrasound bill that passed the House and is being considered by the Senate, but its fate seems in doubt.

J. Tucker Martin, a spokesman for McDonnell, had no comment on Vogel's decision to strike her bill.

McDonnell, who had previously expressed support for the ultrasound requirement, got involved in negotiations over the bill as public criticism increased, meeting privately with Republicans and Democrats. He issued a statement about an hour before the House of Delegates took up the issue Wednesday, asking the House to accept an alternative bill that his staff helped draft.

"I am requesting that the General Assembly amend this bill to explicitly state that no woman in Virginia will have to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound involuntarily," he wrote.

Del. David Albo, R-Fairfax County, offered a substitute for SB484 that he said he helped craft at McDonnell's request. It would require an external abdominal ultrasound; if that was not sufficient to determine the age of the fetus, the woman would be given the choice of having a vaginal ultrasound. The amended measure passed, 65-32, largely along party lines.

However, unbeknownst to Albo and other delegates, Vogel had already called for her bill to be stricken.

Del. Bob Marshall, R-Prince William County, one of the most ardent opponents of abortion in the legislature, urged members of the GOP to stand firm. "Instead of confronting the misinformation that has been presented here, some Republicans would like to back away from this," he said.

He read from literature he said he obtained from nearly a dozen abortion clinics, including one each in Norfolk and Virginia Beach, that indicates all require an ultrasound before performing an abortion. Some opponents have likened the ultrasound bill to rape because, in most cases early in pregnancy, it must be done internally.

"Does it say rape?" Marshall asked as he read from a description of standard care from a Norfolk abortion provider. "No, it says an ultrasound."

Marshall abstained from the vote on the amended Senate bill.

Victoria Cobb, president of the Family Foundation of Virginia, which supported the ultrasound bill, expressed disappointment but said her group backs the amended bill.

"If an ultrasound bill does not ultimately pass the General Assembly this year it would be, in our opinion, a far worse outcome than the amendments passed today," she wrote.

Wednesday morning, a coalition of abortion rights groups delivered petitions with 33,300 signatures to McDonnell, urging him to veto a series of anti-abortion bills.

One of those groups, NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia, issued a statement saying, "This is about the governor's political aspirations, not about women's health or protecting her rights. These amendments do not make the legislation any more acceptable."

Del. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, said that Republicans were too hasty in drafting a new bill, and that in doing so, they made the bill "worse than it was."

She said most women who have abortions do so early in the first trimester, when a fetus is so small that a conventional ultrasound done externally on the abdomen can't detect it. Yet if the bill becomes law, all women must have that kind of ultrasound.

"What you have done is mandated an ultrasound that will be utterly useless," she said.

Michael Sluss of The Roanoke Times contributed to this report.

Harry Minium, (757) 446-2371, harry.minium@pilotonline.com