Know What It Costs You: Protecting Women and Families on Virginia’s Ballot
This November, Virginians will be asked to do something that happens rarely: amend the state constitution. Voters will decide on three amendments covering reproductive rights, marriage, and voting rights. The first would establish a fundamental right to “reproductive freedom,” covering decisions about prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, contraception, abortion, miscarriage management, and fertility care. The title sounds harmless, and that is the problem. A constitutional amendment is not an ordinary law. The only way to reverse one is to pass another amendment through a referendum. Before Virginians lock anything into their founding document, they deserve to read the fine print and ask what it will cost their families, their daughters, and their communities.
The fine print matters most where women’s health is concerned. The amendment would allow the state to restrict abortion in the third trimester, but not when the patient’s life or physical or mental health is at risk. Conservatives have long warned that when “health” is left open-ended, with no definition and no clear limit, a protection meant for rare emergencies can swallow the rule. A standard that broad leaves little for the legislature to regulate, and it gives voters little assurance that late-term abortion would meet any meaningful limit. Real protection for women means clear medical standards, informed consent, and safety regulations on clinics. It does not mean writing a blank check into the constitution that those standards could be struck down for violating.
The amendment also raises questions about parents and minors. One critic pointed out that the amendment names no age and does not distinguish between adults and minors, and he worried it could do away with parental consent. Whatever one thinks of abortion, most Virginians agree that a school nurse cannot give a teenager an aspirin without a parent’s permission, and that a young girl facing a frightening decision should not face it without her mother and father. Parents are the first line of protection for a vulnerable child, and a constitutional “fundamental right” with no stated limits could be used to challenge the safeguards that keep them involved. A pro-woman, pro-family policy would strengthen that bond rather than test whether the courts will sever it.
Conservatives also believe a compassionate society should offer more than one option. Women facing unplanned pregnancies are often facing financial pressure, a lack of support, or fear, and the answer to those pressures should not be a procedure that cannot be undone. Virginia can do better by funding pregnancy resource centers, supporting adoption, expanding maternal and postpartum care, and standing behind mothers who choose life. Nor is this a fringe view, since many Virginians who are uneasy with abortion also believe in extending a hand to the woman in crisis. A constitutional amendment that treats abortion as the centerpiece of “reproductive freedom” tends to crowd out these alternatives and leave women with fewer real choices.
Finally, this is a question of who decides. Virginia already permits abortion, and abortion is currently legal up until the third trimester. That means the amendment is not about whether women can obtain care today. It is about whether future legislatures, elected by the people, will lose the power to set reasonable limits at all. As the Virginia Freedom PAC reminds voters, know what it costs you, know who voted for it, and vote in November. Early in-person voting began September 18 and runs through October 31, so there is time to read the amendment, ask hard questions, and cast an informed vote. Protecting women’s health, parental rights, and the voters’ own authority to legislate is worth the trip to the polls.
