Democrats Win Another Step Towards Abortion To Birth In Virginia

In an aggressive step towards enshrining unlimited abortion in Virginia, the Commonwealth’s Democrat-majority Senate late last month advanced a ballot measure that would codify abortion until birth in the state’s constitution. If passed again next year, the amendment will become a ballot measure in 2026 and go to a statewide vote.

Just a week before that, Democrats in the state’s House of Delegates voted in favor of the amendment. After the overturning of Roe v. Wade, codifying abortion has become a rallying cry for abortion advocates. Virginia Democrats fast-tracked the resolution as a top priority in the state’s first session of 2025, completing the first step in the two-year amendment process.

Every Republican in the Senate voted against the amendment, with senators voicing opposition on the floor. Democrats rejected proposed reductions in some of the most extreme aspects of the amendment from Republican Sens. Emily Jordan and Tara Durant. If the measure enters Virginia’s constitution, it would prevent the legislature from regulating abortionists and the distribution of deadly chemical abortion drugs, said Olivia Gans-Turner, president of the Virginia Society for Human Life.

“For Democrats to make this their number one priority really speaks to how extreme they’ve become on this issue,” said Caitlin Connors, a regional director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. “They’ve been prioritizing this over all of the other things they could address for people in Virginia.”

Republican Sens. Mark Peake, Mark Obenshain, Richard Stuart, and Chris Head led a challenge to the resolution, citing risks and false information. In response, Democrats did admit that Virginia’s current laws are not safe, with many aspects of abortion nearly unregulated, Gans-Turner noted. This did not change Democrats’ votes.

“Fighting for the right to terminate the lives of unborn babies seems to be at the heart of [Democrats’] movement. They’ve brought bill after bill,” Peake noted.

The proposed constitutional amendment would only allow the legislature to limit abortion in the case of a “compelling state interest.” Restrictions on age are absent, as well as limits on the term age of an unborn child. Parental consent is also not required for underage abortions.

“This is not a Roe v. Wade framework, where a compelling state interest can be the life of the child at the line of viability,” said Del. Mark Earley Jr. (R-Chesterfield), who debated the House version of the measure. “It is exactly true and not an exaggeration, that this amendment would allow abortion up until birth, the only restriction being one doctor saying this would affect the mother’s health.”

Earley said many legislators and voters think the amendment would restore the Roe v. Wade framework, but that’s false. The measure goes much farther: “This would obliterate parental rights, wipe out any existing laws about parental notification and create new fundamental rights for individuals, not just for adults. The Democrats in the legislature say we aren’t tampering with parental rights, but from a lawyer, and common sense perspective, [this amendment] will absolutely override those things.”

Jeff Caruso, executive director of the Virginia Catholic Conference, said thousands of Catholics across Virginia contacted their legislators, asking them to vote against the amendment. Pro-abortion legislators hell-bent on abortion until birth disregarded their calls. A Jan. 21 statement by Virginia’s Catholic Bishops Michael Burbidge and Barry Knestout called the measure “extreme, radical, deadly, and tragically misguided.”

In November, the House of Delegates in Virginia is up for re-election. If Democrats maintain their majority, they will pass the amendment as their top priority, Connors said. To gain a stronghold against the measure, Republicans would have to flip only one or two seats.

“The only hope is that Republicans regain control of the House this fall and then it really will go four more years before [potentially] making it to the ballot,” Peake said. “If Democrats hold the House this fall, they will pass [the amendment] again in January and it will go straight to the voters. The important part then will be our ability to educate the public on what the Constitutional amendment actually does.”

Leftist polls suggest that Virginians support abortion, but these polls are seriously flawed, Gans-Turner said. They do not ask if people want abortion to be legal until birth or without any protective regulations that guard women’s safety, key elements of the ballot measure. The polls also don’t check if Virginians are aware this amendment will force taxpayers to pay for abortions and can allow lawsuits to remove parental involvement from minors seeking abortions, she said.

“When Democrats are talking about abortion with their constituents, it’s always framed in the most extreme examples, to protect the life of the mother, or a situation when a minor has been a victim of sexual assault,” said Del. Nick Freitas (R-Culpeper). “That is not what Democrats voted for [this session.] They voted essentially, for unrestricted, unregulated abortion all the way through the ninth month.”

Ashley Bateman is a policy writer for The Heartland Institute and blogger for Ascension Press. Her work has been featured in The Washington Times, The Daily Caller, The New York Post, The American Thinker and numerous other publications. She previously worked as an adjunct scholar for The Lexington Institute and as editor, writer and photographer for The Warner Weekly, a publication for the American military community in Bamberg, Germany. Ashley is a board member at a Catholic homeschool cooperative in Virginia. She homeschools her four incredible children along with her brilliant engineer/scientist husband.