Richmond's focus turns to abortion

Republican leaders insisted at the start of the General Assembly session that they wanted to focus their new control of both houses on passing measures to boost the economy and increase jobs across the commonwealth.

But in the past three weeks, action in Richmond has revealed some members of the party are as focused as ever on familiar divisive social issues, to the exclusion of much else.

They've advanced proposals to test welfare recipients for drug use and repeal a mandate that the state provide parents with information about a sexually transmitted infection that causes a deadly form of cancer. They've pushed forward a bill codifying regulations allowing privately run, state-supported adoption agencies to reject prospective parents on the basis of sexual orientation.

The high-water mark so far came this week, when Republicans advanced two measures tackling one of this nation's most difficult topics: abortion.

The first bill would require women to undergo an ultrasound before an abortion. It would force physicians to put the image in the patient's medical file. The woman would also be given an opportunity to see the ultrasound and listen to the fetal heartbeat.

Supporters argued the proposal is simply designed to help a woman make an informed decision about a procedure with profound consequences.

But making an informed decision doesn't require government intrusion into the relationship between a patient and her doctor. It doesn't require a government mandate for a medical procedure that may not be necessary. It doesn't require lawmakers to substitute their judgment for a doctor's.

Lawmakers could have just as easily mandated the distribution of a pamphlet showing fetal development.

That approach, however, wouldn't allow for other provisions that reveal the real purpose of SB 484: making it harder for women to have an abortion, a freedom protected under the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.

The state bill requires women who live less than 100 miles from a provider to have an ultrasound at least 24 hours before they undergo an abortion, ensuring they'll have to make arrangements for work, travel and family obligations on at least two days instead of one. Women living at least 100 miles from a clinic would be permitted to undergo an abortion two hours after an ultrasound.

The bill, set for a vote in the full Senate this week, piggybacks on a measure approved last year, which tightened architectural codes for abortion clinics. Nearly every abortion clinic in Virginia fails to comply with the new code.

Perhaps the more disturbing bill was approved Tuesday by a House committee.

HB 62 would end state subsidies for women eligible for Medicaid to have an abortion in cases where a doctor has certified the fetus would be born with a "gross and totally incapacitating physical deformity or mental deficiency."

Last year, the state agreed to cover the costs of 10 such abortions at a Medicaid-negotiated rate. But in seven of those cases, the state didn't receive a bill and therefore didn't pay anything. It received partial bills for two cases and a full bill in a third, bringing the total amount the state paid to $2,784.

Because abortions can be so expensive, the proposal would, in effect, force Virginia's poorest women to carry to term a child with debilitating disabilities.

The bill comes even as Gov. Bob McDonnell's proposed budget withholds millions in Medicaid inflationary adjustments and effectively hollows out many other health-care services for the poor. Teen pregnancy prevention programs, free clinics, community health care initiatives - all would lose money in the upcoming biennium under the governor's plan.

Three women testified to the House committee about the agony of knowing they were carrying a child unlikely to survive or develop outside the womb. Each woman opted for an abortion.

Del. Mark Cole, the Fredericksburg-area Republican who introduced the measure, countered that those three women wouldn't have been affected by his bill because each had private insurance.

His bill only affects poorer Virginians. None of whom was there to speak against it.