The Virginian-Pilot
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RICHMOND
Try as they might, abortion-rights advocates have been largely powerless so far this year to stop many bills they object to from progressing in the Republican-controlled legislature.
Fresh disappointment for them came Thursday when a Senate committee advanced legislation that would deny abortion subsidies to low-income pregnant women whose unborn children are likely to have severe mental or physical defects.
Despite the odds against them, however, those advocates and their allies say they're not ready to give up trying to defeat or ease some of the measures they fear would limit access to reproductive health care. And they aren't ruling out legal challenges, if that doesn't work.
In the spotlight Thursday was Del. Mark Cole's proposal to repeal a law that permits Virginia to pay for abortions for eligible poor women when a doctor believes "the fetus would be born with a gross and totally incapacitating physical deformity or mental deficiency."
His HB62 was approved by Republicans on the Senate Education and Health Committee on an 8-7, party-line vote.
Before it left committee, the legislation was amended by Norfolk Democratic Sen. Ralph Northam to place qualified children born with such conditions first in line on the long waiting list for Medicaid waivers, which cover costs of community-based care for people with serious disabilities.
Other Democrats said the bill would deprive medical options to poor women and foist on the state the expense of caring for disabled children born to parents with limited financial means.
Some lawmakers who file anti-abortion bills "wouldn't give a baby one bottle of milk to survive once they're alive," and have gutted programs to aid poor children, said Portsmouth Sen. Louise Lucas.
"The disabled have a right to life," replied Cole, R-Spotsylvania County, saying taxpayers who morally oppose abortion shouldn't have to pay for it.
He said his bill seeks to match Virginia law to federal rules that provide public abortion funding only in cases of rape, incest or to protect a mother's life. Virginia last year approved 10 abortions involving seriously malformed fetuses, spending about $2,800.
Testifying in support of Cole's bill was Joe Bartling of Oakton, the adoptive father of six children from overseas who, he said, were undesirable to their biological parents due to blindness and other disabilities.
"Today, we have a family of healthy, beautiful, productive, loving children," Bartling told the committee.
Disabled children aren't the focus of the bill, countered Richmond-based Dr. Wendy Klein, who said it would make "a desperate situation more desperate" for impoverished women by forcing them to carry a troubled pregnancy to term.
Among other bills that have drawn concern from some women's-health advocates this year are measures to define life as beginning at conception, and to mandate that women get ultrasounds before abortions.
A session that's been a banner year for anti-abortion lawmakers has been a bitter pill for Tarina Keene, who called this one of the most frustrating sessions in her time with NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia.
"This year the bills seem to be particularly egregious," she said.
Another concern for Keene is Gov. Bob McDonnell'sproposal to eliminate $910,000 in funding over two years for teenage-pregnancy-prevention programs around Virginia, including those in the Norfolk, Portsmouth and Eastern Shore health districts.
Abortion-rights supporters plan a Feb. 23 rally at the Capitol to protest several bills, including the "personhood" proposal.
Julian Walker, 804-697-1564, julian.walker@pilotonline.com
Kathy Adams, 804-697-1563, kathy.adams@pilotonline.com
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Win/win?
Amazing. I find after reading all these comments that those who can't justify their antipathy towards women's rights on moral grounds switch to economic arguments and back as the situation demands.
And who pays?
""The disabled have a right to life," replied Cole, R-Spotsylvania County, saying taxpayers who morally oppose abortion shouldn't have to pay for it."
And who pays for caring for these children who cannot be cared for by the mother?
I suppose Cole also opposes the death penalty under the same grounds. (I know, this is not original with me, but is valid no matter who originated it.)
In for a penny in for a pound
When you enter into the business of dictating people's lives you have opened the door of obligation. When you want to close planned parenthood who provide low cost women's healthcare under the guise that they're only providing abortions you become responsible for the result. When you interfere with a woman's access to birth control because your religious beliefs, you're going to bear some responsibility. It's not your right to take away someone else's. You can try to prop up your argument with it's my money but as someone else said it's all our money if we're paying taxes. And as far as the easy fix is to just not have sex goes, well maybe you need to draw up a pledge and require all these men legislating these bills to sign first.
I'll draw up that pledge as
I'll draw up that pledge as soon as our legislators start having children they can't support and/or tell me I am forced to pay for their abortions.
Until then, your comment makes no sense.
Bill to end funding of abortion of disabled children
"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government." Thomas Jefferson
The care of human life...
If only the current brand of republikinks cared for life after birth and were not intent on it's destruction.
Not enough
As a social moderate I choose to not have a strong stance either way on this issue but what I can appreciate is the cutting of social programs that drain our state budget. To be quite honest someone getting gov't aid to have an abortion cause they can't afford it is like me asking for the state to pay for my corrective eye surgery cause I can't afford it. It's time that people be held responsible for their actions. Granted the same person has no insurance so the cost of having the baby is more on the tax payer then letting them abort but hopefully that would be deflected to federal funds. I remember VA being a state that ran on a surplus with no deficit under George Allen and Mark Warner. It makes me sick to read about cuts in education...
Politics aside,
focusing on serving the greatest need has been proven to reduce medical costs overall. Treating those that cannot pay is not the problem, cutting them off is not the solution. Universally available preventative heath care is a major part of a viable solution and will reduce the burden on insurance carriers, consumers and taxpayers. Boeing, Group Health Seattle and several others have taken this approach and are getting better health care results at lower costs.
Virginia is not so bad, but we could do much better. That will not happen under the thumb of Virginia Republikinks that put profit ahead of care.
Great
I am generally conservative and disagree with this 100%. It is far cheaper to subsidize abortions for low income women than it is to pay for the healthcare, feeding and housing of their children for the next 18 years.
I say fully fund their abortions and birth control and minimize the number of welfare and medicaid dependent children. It will save us millions if not billions in tax dollars in the long run.
The point is the government
The point is the government needs to stop paying for the healthcare, feeding and housing of their children for the next 18 years and let the parents worry about it. Poor people shouldn't be having children and if they do the support of them needs to come 100% from themselves. Once poor people realize they won't get money to house and feed their children their birth rates will drop.