Dem Sweep In VA Endangers Millions Of Unborn, School-Age Girls

Elected Tuesday, Virginia’s first female governor is determined to pursue far-reaching abortion and life-ending measures in the commonwealth with the support of a Democrat majority in the House and Senate.

Predicted to be the “most anti-life governor in Virginia history” by her opponents, Democrat Abigail Spanberger campaigned on a pro-abortion platform, favoring the codification of abortion in the state’s constitution and promising to “absolutely veto” abortion restrictions if elected.

Abortion goliath Planned Parenthood’s Virginia group endorsed the former congresswoman, championing her congressional efforts to prevent restrictions on abortion services and “safeguard” abortion tourism. Spanberger’s record, including co-sponsoring the Women’s Health Protection Act and the Right to Contraception Act, and voting against born-alive protections, earned her an “F” rating by one of the nation’s largest pro-life political organizations. 

Spanberger will govern alongside newly elected Lt. Gov. Ghazala Hashmi, also a Democrat, whose initiatives as a state senator included co-sponsoring the constitutional amendment to enshrine abortion rights in Virginia in 2025 and introducing legislation that would redefine abortion as “protected health care.” Hashmi has also led the charge to legalize physician-assisted suicide in the state for multiple consecutive sessions.

Jay Jones, who was supported by Spanberger in the race for attorney general, made national headlines recently for texts fantasizing about violence toward a member of the opposing political party and his family. Jones rounds out the “extremist” leadership now in power in the state, said Olivia Gans Turner, Virginia Society for Human Life president.

The victory of so many pro-abortion candidates means that more extreme bills will be passed in upcoming General Assembly sessions, Turner said. These bills will “protect abortion businesses and not vulnerable women and their unborn babies … expand legal cover for abortionists that break the laws of other states, and obstruct pregnancy care programs that protect unborn children,” she said. 

It’s not just the unborn that Spanberger is committed to leaving vulnerable. In 2023 she refused to support the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, which would disallow males from participating in girls’ sports programs, even after Virginia made national news for an attack by a male in a girls’ school bathroom.

“There will be no pro-life legislation here for the next four years,” said Republican state Sen. Mark Peake. “The question will be, how much does this Democratic majority expand the right to terminate the life of unborn children? This also means that the constitutional amendment goes forward. We are going to have to wait and see what kind of legislation Democrats will propose in conjunction with that.”

Peake’s main concern is the removal of parental notification requirements currently in place in the commonwealth and a degradation of standards for abortion clinics. He also expects Virginia Democrats to allocate state funds to support Planned Parenthood.

If the anti-life views of former Gov. Ralph Northam are any indication, Virginia Democrats’ agenda will be radical indeed.

In 2019, Northam, a physician and outspoken abortion proponent, supported a bill to legalize abortion up until the moment of birth in the commonwealth. If a child survived and was born alive, but showed signs of distress, the infant should be “resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and mother,” Northam said.

The comments were met with disgust by pro-lifers and some pro-abortion moderates, with one supporter of the bill saying her vote in favor was a “mistake.” Northam, however, offered no apology and claimed he had “no regrets.” Instead, he signed into law the “Reproductive Health Protection Act,” a “horribly destructive bill” removing basic health and safety standards previously in place for abortion clinics. A delegate at the time, Virginia’s new attorney general Jay Jones voted in favor.

Years of Democrat control have taken a toll on the historically conservative, pro-life state. Years after Dobbs, Virginia stands as an abortion stronghold in the South. Pro-abortion legislators dominate the General Assembly, passing increasingly radical, far-reaching abortion laws, despite only 30 percent of Virginians wanting abortion to be legal in all cases. 

Another Virginian, Thomas Jefferson, once said “the care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.” Pro-abortion Democrats have lost that objective in Virginia. 

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.