Delegate Dave LaRock is the Chief Patron of a bill in the House of Delegates that would ban abortions after 20 weeks gestation. Delegates Richard Bell, Mark Cole, and Nicholas Freitas have also signed on to HB 1473. A summary of the bill reads:
Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act; penalty. Creates the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (the Act). The Act prohibits an abortion after 20 weeks’ gestation unless, in reasonable medical judgment, the mother has a condition that so complicates her medical condition as to necessitate the abortion to avert her death or to avert serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function. When an abortion is not prohibited post-20 weeks’ gestation, and if the woman elects to have an abortion, the physician is required to terminate the pregnancy in a manner that would provide the unborn child the best opportunity to survive. The bill punishes performance of an abortion in violation of the Act as a Class 4 felony. The bill also provides for civil remedies against a physician who performs an abortion in violation of the Act.
Details of the bill here.
Governor John Kasich has recently signed into law a similar bill in Ohio.
Thank you to my Delegate, Dave LaRock, for introducing this important bill in Virginia. Let’s make this law in Virginia!
More on the story here.
