ICYMI: Democrats are rapidly reneging on a core commitment they made during the campaign to maintain the current abortion law in Virginia. 

As National Review reports, House and Senate Democrats moved this week to drastically change the law in Virginia to enshrine their no-limits position on abortion in the Constitution. 

This comes just two weeks after Virginia’s elections, throughout which Democrat candidates repeated status-quo rhetoric on this issue. 

That includes rhetoric from Don Scott, who said in September that “the goal is for these laws to remain the same.”

Now Scott is praising the introduction of the constitutional amendments that would do the exact opposite of his stated goal.

Back in October, Schuyler VanValkenburg said that he supports Virginia’s current abortion laws, including the “reasonable regulations in the third trimester.”

But following the election, VanValkenburg is backtracking on that statement, saying he supports a constitutional amendment that would upend current law in Virginia.

For VanValkenburg, this amounts to a double-flip-flop on this issue. 

Before VanValkenburg said that he supported the current law in Virginia, he tried to change the law by supporting Kathy Tran's 2019 bill to remove all limits on abortion in Virginia. 

VanValkenburg is now reverting to what was his position on this issue all along – that there should be no limits on abortion in Virginia and that the law should be changed accordingly.

Every Virginia Democrat who campaigned on maintaining current law should answer the basic question:

Do they stand by what they said in the campaign, or do they support this constitutional amendment to change the law to remove all limits on abortion in Virginia? 

It can’t be both.

NATIONAL REVIEW: Virginia Democrats Introduce Amendment to Enshrine ‘Fundamental Right’ to Abortion in State Constitution

By Audrey Fahlberg

November 20, 2023

A new constitutional amendment pre-filed Monday by Virginia Democrats’ new house majority leader-elect Charniele Herring would enshrine a “fundamental right to reproductive freedom” in the state constitution.

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The constitutional amendment seems to suggest a striking departure from the commonwealth’s current ban on abortions after 26 weeks and six days of pregnancy, with some exceptions in the third trimester. Unlike Ohio’s newly passed Issue 1 ballot initiative, which allows for limits on the procedure beyond the fetal viability point with some exceptions, Herring’s proposed constitutional amendment excludes fetal viability from its definition of state compelling interest.

…

This constitutional amendment would seem to put Herring at odds with some of the status quo abortion-related rhetoric many state legislative Democrats had campaigned on this cycle. Democratic House speaker-designee Don Scott, for example, campaigned heavily in the lead-up to Election Day on preserving Virginia’s abortion laws as is. “The goal is for these laws to remain the same and for all health care decisions to be between a woman and her doctor, not the heavy-handedness of Richmond politicians,” Scott told the Virginian-Pilot in September.

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