Today is NARAL Pro-Choice America’s annual “Blog for Choice Day” in honor of the 39th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade recognizing a woman’s  constitutional right to have control over her body and reproductive life by being able to choose safe, legal abortion. NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia’s blog is honored today to share a special guest blog post by Congressman Jim Moran, who represents Virginia’s 8th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives and has long been a champion for women’s rights and health.

Guest post by Representative Jim Moran

The Assembly is moving quickly during this 60-day session, so we’d like to get you caught up on legislation dealing with reproductive rights.

As we faced some tough losses this past election cycle, we’re unfortunately facing a slew of bad bills this year:

HB 1 – “Personhood”

This is the bill catching everyone’s attention this year. After Mississippi voters made it clear they didn’t want anything to do with this radical legislation, Virginia’s anti-choice legislators, led by quixotic Delegate Bob Marshall, have decided to try to get passed the General Assembly and onto Gov. Bob McDonnell’s desk. This could make all forms of abortion, including in the case of rape or incest, completely illegal and ban the most effective forms of birth control.

HBs 261/462 & SBs 279/484 – Mandating Ultrasounds

Delegates Cole and Byron and Senators Vogel and Smith have brought back this familiar bill. They are all fighting to get the credit from the Family Foundation to see who can place the most undue burdens upon a pregnant woman seeking an abortion. This would force women to have an ultrasound before an abortion, and in Delegate Cole’s legislation, at least 48 hours before. This bill invades the doctor-patient relationship and forces a patient to undergo and pay for, in some cases, a procedure that may not be medically relevant or necessary. Furthermore, this violates the American Medical Association’s Code of Medical Ethics.

HB 62 – Abortion Funding

Delegate Mark Cole is back with more job creating legislation for his constituents in Stafford County. Just kidding, he doesn’t have time for that. He’s decided that it’s in the Commonwealth’s best interest to take away funding for women who need to have an abortion because a certified physician has found that the fetus will be born with a gross and totally incapacitating physical deformity or mental deficiency.

HB 464 & SB 496 – Health Exchange

Del. Bryon and Sen. Watkins have introduced this language that creates the state’s health care exchange under the federal Affordable Care Act but prohibits the sale of insurance coverage for abortions, except when the pregnancy endangers the mother’s life or in cases of rape or incest. Another case of those who want government to be smaller and less intrusive to be anything but.

HB 1174 – Health Insurance

Bob Marshall (yes, these names have a tendency to repeat), he of small government and less taxes, has proposed a bill telling insurance companies to hand out separate but equal insurance policies: one with abortion and one without.

These bills have all been assigned committees or sub-committees but haven’t been voted on yet. Be sure to keep checking our bill tracker to get the latest updates on all the bills we are following. And be sure to email us to if you have questions about contacting your legislator!

If you are not sure who your legislator is, you can easily find your legislator here.Or email us for more info!

The Virginia General Assembly began this past Wednesday. Only three days in, anti-choice lawmakers wasted no time ignoring the economy, education and transportation and instead working to intrude in the personal, medical decisions of Virginia women and families.

In case you missed it, here is an overview of this week in Richmond.

Allies fight back against birth control ban

Back in November, Delegate Bob Marshall continued his unending quest to interfere in the medical decisions of Virginians when he pre-filed the first bill for the 2012 session. HB 1 brings the “personhood” debate to Virginia and is so extreme it could ban the most effective forms of birth control as well as outlaw abortion in all cases, even when a woman is the victim of rape or incest.

This week, pro-choice allies in the Virginia General Assembly spoke out against the dangerous consequences of HB 1. Delegate Charniele Herring and Senator Donald McEachin called the bill exactly what it is in an article appearing in The Virginian-Pilot:

Del. Charniele Herring, D-Alexandria, called it “reckless and divisive” and “an abhorrent attack on women’s rights.”

State Sen. Donald McEachin, D-Richmond, said the Marshall bill is part of a broad assault on abortion rights by Republicans at the state and federal levels, noting that some GOP presidential contenders have expressed sympathy for such measures.

We want to send a shout out to our allies, especially Delegate Herring and Senator McEachin for speaking out against HB 1. We know most Virginians reject Delegate Marshall’s dangerous proposal and we will continue getting the word out across the state about this extreme bill. Learn how you can get involved at our “personhood” page.

More obstacles for Virginia women

While NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia and our allies fight for expanded and affordable access to healthcare for Virginia women, anti-choice politicians create more obstacles to timely healthcare.

Three days into the 2012 session and we already have four anti-choice bills that interfere in the doctor-patient relationship.

In the House of Delegates, Delegate Mark Cole and Delegate Kathy Byron have filed bills mandating women have ultrasounds prior to obtaining abortion care. Both bills require waiting periods between the ultrasound and the abortion procedure (with Delegate Cole’s bill requiring a waiting period of 48 hours). This will be Delegate Byron’s fifth attempt at passing such legislation.

Anti-choice Senators Ralph Smith and Jill Vogel filed similar bills on the Senate side.

Virginia women should have the option of an ultrasound if they request it or if their doctor recommends it. Politicians should not be allowed to put their agenda in the examining room with the doctor and the patient and add yet another financial and logistical obstacle for women seeking abortion care.

We have our work cut out for us this session, but we know pro-choice Virginia is strong. Be sure to keep up with the latest happenings in Richmond on our General Assembly page or on Facebook and Twitter.

NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia is sad to see Joey Richards, our Deputy Director of Advocacy and Communications, leave us as he returns to the Western United States. Joey has worked with us since 2010 and has done an exemplary job working on Virginia’s campaigns and NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia’s programs and managing our communications.

We’d like to welcome Sean Holihan, who will take over the responsibilities of the position.  Sean has a policy and political background in Virginia as he has worked on campaigns as both staff and a consultant and has worked in the Virginia General Assembly for representatives like State Senator George Barker and former Delegate Brian Moran.

We are incredibly happy to have Sean on board. You’ll be sure to hear from him soon, especially as the General Assembly session begins tomorrow.  Please wish Joey well and say hello to Sean!

Governor Bob McDonnell has long tried to hide his out-of-touch conservative streak. However, shortly before the New Year, Virginia’s Governor showed his true colors and approved the nation’s most restrictive regulations on first-trimester abortion providers here in Virginia.

On December 29^th, Gov. McDonnell approved a new set of regulations that single out first-trimester abortion providers in the effort to shut them down. The regulations effectively require women’s health centers that provide first-trimester abortion services to be singled out from other doctor’s offices and be treated like hospitals.

Sounds innocuous on the surface, right? Well, that’s what McDonnell and his allies in the Virginia General Assembly want you to think. In fact, a first-trimester abortion is actually safer than colonoscopies, oral surgery and laser eye surgery.  First trimester abortion has less than half of one percent complication rate! Yet, unsurprisingly, doctors’ offices that provide those services have not been targeted by Gov. McDonnell.

The reason is obvious. This was a political move, clearly made to appeal to the far right. Only a small percentage of Virginians want to restrict a woman’s right to choose – and that small, fringe percentage has McDonnell’s ear.  Unfortunately, all Virginia women may find themselves with no reproductive healthcare choices in this new political climate.

During the 2009 race for governor between Senator Creigh Deeds and then Attorney General Bob McDonnell, Sen. Deeds tried to tell us that McDonnell was too much of a radical conservative to effectively serve as Virginia’s chief executive officer. Unfortunately, that message is now being heard loud and clear. It’s just two years too late.

I’ll admit, when NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia put out the announcement that the delegates from Prince William County and surrounding areas were hosting a town hall meeting, I anticipated a scene straight from the TV show Parks and Recreation. I imagined being surrounded by concerned voters – all of whom would voice concerns about the community to benevolent and good-hearted, if wonky representatives. (And if the delegates looked like actor Adam Scott, so much the better.)

To my dismay, the town hall felt far less “warm and fuzzy” than I anticipated. Don’t get me wrong – voters came out to speak their minds. From funding for public education to the importance of alternative fuel choices, to taxes that would allow for better/more roads, the residents who spoke did so respectfully, carefully, with researched facts to back up their statements and with stories “from the trenches” as one teacher phrased it, to humanize their statistics.

However, when the political policy in question turned to Del. Bob Marshall’s “Personhood” bill (HB 1), a piece of legislation extremely similar to the bill recently voted down in Mississippi, which moves to give zygotes the same rights/responsibilities/status as a post-partum person, the delegates became visibly uncomfortable. While constituents provided the policy-makers with facts and their own opinions about the destructive legislation, the delegates alternated between shifting in their seats and appearing visibly bored or disinterested.

It was clear that the delegates were NOT listening.

Community members appealed to these men with reasoning from a variety of perspectives:

• In this time of economic uncertainty, when our community still lacks jobs, adequate housing and crucial public services, it is LUDICROUS for the first proposed bill of the year to focus on the rights of a zygote rather than economic development and stimulation.
• The “personhood” bill has many destructive unintended political consequences, including restriction of fertility treatments for families who are not able to become pregnant on their own, access to crucial preventative health care for women and their families, and important stem cell research and scientific advancement opportunities for the region.
• HB 1 is a blatant attack on a woman’s privacy, on her health and the health of her family. It will not affect the number of women who have an abortion, just make the procedure more difficult to access.
• This legislation was defeated in Mississippi and other places for a reason. It is bad policy. You can still identify with the “pro-life” movement and NOT support this bill.

And yet, in their final remarks responding to voters’ concerns, Delegate Bob Marshall and his colleagues (none of whom have ever been pregnant or been in a position to make choices about the status of their uterus) disregarded all these points, stubbornly sticking to non-science based, generally misinformed and sometimes offensive rhetoric. As a fan of the democratic system and a Virginia voter, this interaction – like a bad scene from a TV show where powerful adults act like moody teenagers – was truly disheartening. It is terrifying that some local and state representatives do not have even the common courtesy to listen to constituents, to listen to facts, to look beyond their own personal agendas at the negative implications for this piece of legislation.

So what should we do?

Well – I don’t plan to shut up about my experience. I am a fully developed, multi-celled, voter-registration-holding person. And even if Delegate Bob Marshall believes that zygotes deserve more of his attention than I do, I will fight to make sure my voice and the voices of other human beings in Virginia are not just heard, but listened to.

Parks and Recreation fantasies aside, this is a scene where we can all play a part! Learn more about how you can get involved at NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia’s website.

This weekend, we got more evidence that Virginia’s new regulations singling out abortion providers are about one thing only: a political agenda to eliminate access to safe, legal abortion in Virginia.

On Saturday, Larry O’Dell of the Associated Press released a story titled, “Some medical advisors question abortion rules.” The story focused on the medical professionals and educators who advised the Virginia Department of Health in developing targeted regulations on abortion providers following the passage of S.B. 924 earlier this year.

The point of the story was simple and clear: the regulations now on the governor’s desk awaiting his approval are drastically different than those recommended by a panel of medical professionals and originally drafted by the Department of  Health, in ways that make them excessively difficult for abortion providers to meet and would force many of them to close.

We’re wondering what happened. And we’re not the only ones. One of the medical professionals on the advisory panel expressed his confusion:

Dr. James E. Ferguson II, chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Virginia…said the document adopted by the board in September went well beyond what the advisory panel recommended. “I don’t know where they got changed, but ultimately they were different, more stringent and more restrictive – and several of them, at least, unnecessary,” Ferguson said.

Those of us who were at the Board of Health meeting in September saw Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s office hijack deliberations in order to make the regulations as far-reaching as possible.

The new article highlights some specific ways Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s office worked to turn medical suggestions for targeted regulations that would have at least been related to medical science into an overreaching, ideologically-motivated attack on abortion access. Let’s take a look at a couple medical recommendations Cuccinelli’s office rejected:

Medical recommendation 1: Allow existing facilities to be “grandfathered” in to building requirements.

This would mean that, according to the AP article, existing offices “would not be held to standards that were not in place when they opened.” No other existing medical facilities in Virginia are required to be retrofitted to meet new construction codes.

Ken Cuccinelli’s view: “New strict building standards – which cover things like hallway widths and covered entrances – are mandated by state law.”

Medical advice: Rejected.

Medical recommendation 2: Limit regulations to offices providing surgical abortion and exempt offices that only provide medical abortion.

This would mean that offices offering medication abortion would not be subject to the same strict building requirements as an office providing surgery — a commonsense exception that would have excluded providers that do not even do surgical procedures from having to adhere to hospital-style regulations.

Ken Cuccinelli’s view: “State law makes no distinction between medical and surgical abortions so the board can’t either.”

Medical advice: Rejected

The bottom line: Attorney General Cuccinelli’s office continues overreaching to push these regulations to their most extreme possible form, disregarding sound medical science and the expertise of health professionals in his pursuit of a backdoor ban on access to abortion in Virginia.

If you haven’t yet, contact Governor McDonnell or write a  letter to the editor of your local paper to express your concern about anti-choice ideology trumping sound medical science and women’s healthcare needs in the crafting of these regulations.

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell is not known for looking out for the best interests of all Virginians.

In little over a year he has

• rejected valuable funding that would help our youth make lifelong, healthy decisions
• restricted the ability of low-income women to access vital abortion care
• prevented women from using their own money for insurance plans that cover abortion

He is now set to approve the most restrictive abortion regulations in the entire country.

But can he ignore 40,000 voices?

Yesterday, members of the Virginia Coalition to Protect Women’s Health, of which NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia is a member, met with the governor’s policy staff to present over 40,000 signatures from Virginia and around the country. (Read the Coalition’s press statement. PDF)

The message was clear to the governor: Reject these new regulations as dangerous for Virginia women.

Will he listen to over 40,000 people and stop pursuing this single-minded political agenda and do what is right for Virginia women?

We may know soon.

From our colleagues at NARAL Pro-Choice America, we hear about the latest attempt by anti-choice groups to chip away at advances in women’s reproductive healthcare:

When the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) followed medical experts’ advice and announced that newly issued insurance plans must cover all FDA-approved birth-control methods without a copay, it marked one of the greatest improvements to women’s health in a generation.

Unfortunately, anti-contraception forces are trying to chip away at this achievement.

Led by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, these forces have launched a massive campaign to allow employers who oppose contraception to deny their employees a health plan that covers contraception.

Providing insurance coverage that includes birth control without an additional copay is an important preventative and cost-saving way to protect women’s reproductive health and enable them to make personal choices about whether and when to have children.

Ninety-eight percent of American women, of all faiths and backgrounds, will use birth control at some point in their lives. As we know, hormonal birth control can be essential medication not only for enabling women to plan the timing and spacing of their children (which helps improve maternal and child health outcomes), but also for helping women manage other aspects of their reproductive and overall health.

So what if these anti-birth control advocates win? Some women could be denied the benefits of this advance in contraception coverage just because of where they work.

You can help call on the White House today to stand strong with the women of America and make sure birth control coverage without co-pays is available to every woman, regardless of her employer. Take action on the NARAL Pro-Choice America website.

You can also call the White House comment line and give them your input over the phone! Call (202) 456-1111 and say something along the lines of: “I am calling regarding the new policy requiring health-insurance plans to cover birth control without a copay. I am concerned that religious employers may be allowed to opt out of this coverage requirement. I urge the president to ensure that all women have access to contraceptive coverage, regardless of where they work. “

Thank you for taking action!

It’s been a roller coaster of an election season and it’s not even 2012.

Last Tuesday’s election wasn’t a defeat for pro-choice policy. But the results put Virginia women’s healthcare in a perilous position and mean we can’t rest.

The state’s GOP – which already controls the House – gained enough seats to create a 20-20 split in the Senate, with the anti-choice lieutenant governor breaking ties, leaving the state without a reliable pro-choice majority. Still, the results kept the GOP from winning an outright majority, which polls predicted was likely.

And there were certainly successes locally and nationally. A significant number of Virginia’s pro-choice candidates were elected and re-elected. Over in Mississippi, more than 55 percent of voters rejected the personhood amendment that would have made abortion illegal by defining a fetus as a person from the moment of conception. The measure didn’t allow abortions in cases of rape and incest and to protect the life of the mother – and would have banned certain forms of birth control and in-vitro fertilization.

On the one hand, I’m thrilled with these successes. But we also lost the dedicated pro-choice vote of Senator Edd Houck, D-Spotsylvania, who chaired the Senate Committee on Education and Health, where all choice-related bills go. Losing the dedicated leadership of Senator Houck and the 20-20 split means Virginia’s women could be facing even more attacks on our right to safe, legal abortion and preventative care in the 2012 General Assembly session. It will now be far easier for anti-choice lawmakers to push through restrictions such as the unnecessary and politically-motivated regulations on first-trimester abortion providers we saw earlier this year. These restrictions could force a number of women’s health centers to close, leaving many women – especially those in more rural areas – without ready access to abortion services, as well as other critical needs, such as birth control and preventative care.

The elections are over, but our work isn’t. What happens in other states can easily influence Virginia and these attacks impact all of us. Supporters of the personhood effort have said that, despite the Mississippi results, they’re not backing down and will push similar dangerous measures in Florida, Montana, Oregon, Ohio and others. And in Virginia and elsewhere, there is still a sizable contingent of anti-choice supporters pushing to defund Planned Parenthood and find smaller, easier ways to restrict abortion access in several states, including insurance coverage restrictions, ultrasounds and waiting-period requirements.

What can we do? Don’t get complacent. You can do several things over the coming months to fight for reproductive rights.

• Find out who your state elected officials are by visiting the Virginia General Assembly website (or shooting us an email). Call and email them and ask that they protect women’s health in 2012.
• Donate whatever you can to ensure women have access to reproductive services.
• Volunteer your time (or even join NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia as an intern).
• Get informed on the issues and tell five of your friends about the importance of reproductive choice.

Every bit helps when the opposition uses tactics big and small to chip away at our rights.