Elections Matter! "Virginia Senate Votes to Repeal Forced Ultrasound Law"

[Cha]

Jamil Smith ✔ @JamilSmith
Follow
Virginia's Senate is now controlled by Dems. They just voted to repeal a forced-ultrasound law. Elections matter. http://on.msnbc.com/1eSfdLv
6:08 PM - 11 Feb 2014

Va. Senate votes to scrap abortion law

Can Democrats undo the damage to reproductive rights in Virginia?
msnbc @msnbc

344 Retweets 171 favorites
Reply
Retweet
Favorite

Supporters of Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe listen during a campaign event in Dale City, Va., Oct. 27, 2013

snip//

"Terry McAuliffe won the Virginia governor’s mansion last year in part on his repeated promises to be a “brick wall” against restrictions on women’s access to abortion and contraception. But can he and his Democratic allies knock down the barriers that have already been built?

On Tuesday, they showed a willingness to try.

In a rare move, Virginia’s newly Democratic-controlled state Senate voted Tuesday to repeal the forced pre-abortion ultrasound law that drew national headlines (and ridicule) in 2012. The Senate vote was technically tied, 20-20, until Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam, elected in the same Democratic sweep of top state offices as McAuliffe, voted for repeal. (Northam’s opponent, E.W. Jackson, once said that Planned Parenthood was more harmful to African-Americans than the Klan.)

“Virginia state senators have finally understood that this law, which is medically unnecessary and unwarranted and is really only meant to shame and judge women, needed to be repealed,” Cianti Stewart-Reid, executive director of Planned Parenthood Advocates for Virginia told msnbc. “Elections have consequences,” she added."

end snip//

"Legislative repeals of abortion restrictions – which have cascaded in the states in recent years – are “very rare,” said Elizabeth Nash, state issues manager at the Guttmacher Institute. But this is an era of newly-emboldened Democrats seeking to position Republicans as waging a war on women. “There are bills that would repeal abortion restrictions pending in Arizona, Ohio, Nebraska, Georgia and Massachusetts, in addition to Virginia,” Nash said."

Elections Matter

[font color=red]EDIT[/font] Adding this from the link which I originally missed..

The bill is expected to die in the House of Delegates, which is still controlled by Republicans. But it was a sign that state Democrats are willing to expend political capital and energy on the issue.

ohheckyeah