Abortion In Virginia
Abortion in the U.S. state of Virginia is legal. 55% of adults said in a poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Abortion was illegal in Virginia by 1900, and by 1950 had a therapeutic exception. At the University of Virginia Hospital in 1950, a review board in 1950 to examine and approve all abortion requests that were approved for psychiatric reasons which resulted in a large drop in the number of abortions performed there. The 1975 Bigelow v. Virginia was before the US Supreme Court ruled that state bans on abortion clinics advertising their services were unconstitutional. By 2007, it had an abortion-specific informed consent requirement. The number of nineteen clinics in Virginia has fluctuated over the years, with 71 in 1982, 64 in 1992 and eighteen in 2014. There were 20,187 legal abortions in 2014, and 18,663 in 2015. There is an active abortion rights and anti-abortion rights activist communities in the states. The state has also seen anti-abortion rights violence, including at least two arson attacks.
Terminology
The abortion debate most commonly relates to the "induced abortion" of an embryo or fetus at some point in a pregnancy, which is also how the term is used in a legal sense. Some also use the term "elective abortion", which is used in relation to a claim to an unrestricted right of a woman to an abortion, whether or not she chooses to have one. The term elective abortion or voluntary abortion describes the interruption of pregnancy before viability at the request of the woman, but not for medical reasons.
Anti-abortion advocates tend to use terms such as "unborn baby", "unborn child", or "pre-born child", and see the medical terms "embryo", "zygote", and "fetus" as dehumanizing. Both "pro-choice" and "pro-life" are examples of terms labeled as political framing: they are terms which purposely try to define their philosophies in the best possible light, while by definition attempting to describe their opposition in the worst possible light. "Pro-choice" implies that the alternative viewpoint is "anti-choice", while "pro-life" implies the alternative viewpoint is "pro-death" or "anti-life". The Associated Press encourages journalists to use the terms "abortion rights" and "anti-abortion".
Context
Free birth control correlates to teenage girls having a fewer pregnancies and fewer abortions. A 2014 New England Journal of Medicine study found such a link. At the same time, a 2011 study by Center for Reproductive Rights and Ibis Reproductive Health also found that states with more abortion restrictions have higher rates of maternal death, higher rates of uninsured pregnant women, higher rates of infant and child deaths, higher rates of teen drug and alcohol abuse, and lower rates of cancer screening.
According to a 2017 report from the Center for Reproductive Rights and Ibis Reproductive Health, states that tried to pass additional constraints on a women's ability to access legal abortions had fewer policies supporting women's health, maternal health and children's health. These states also tended to resist expanding Medicaid, family leave, medical leave, and sex education in public schools. According to Megan Donovan, a senior policy manager at the Guttmacher Institute, states have legislation seeking to protect a woman's right to access abortion services have the lowest rates of infant mortality in the United States.
Poor women in the United States had problems paying for menstrual pads and tampons in 2018 and 2019. Almost two-thirds of American women could not pay for them. These were not available through the federal Women, Infants, and Children Program (WIC). Lack of menstrual supplies has an economic impact on poor women. A study in St. Louis found that 36% had to miss days of work because they lacked adequate menstrual hygiene supplies during their period. This was on top of the fact that many had other menstrual issues including bleeding, cramps and other menstrual induced health issues. This state was one of a majority that taxed essential hygiene products like tampons and menstrual pads as of November 2018.
History
The University of Virginia created a review board in 1950 to examine and approve all abortion requests that were approved for psychiatric reasons. This had the impact of reducing the number of abortions performed at its facility to one in 1951.
One of the biggest groups of women who oppose legalized abortion in the United States are southern white evangelical Christians. These women voted overwhelming for Trump, with 80% of these voters supporting him at the ballot box in 2016. In November 2018, during US House exit polling, 75% of southern white evangelical Christian women indicated they supported Trump and only 20% said they voted for Democratic candidates.
Legislative history
By the end of the 1800s, all states in the Union except Louisiana had therapeutic exceptions in their legislative bans on abortions. In the 19th century, bans by state legislatures on abortion were about protecting the life of the mother given the number of deaths caused by abortions; state governments saw themselves as looking out for the lives of their citizens.
The state was one of 23 states in 2007 to have a detailed abortion-specific informed consent requirement. In 2013, state Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) law applied to medication induced abortions and private doctor offices in addition to abortion clinics. In mid-May 2019, state law banned abortion after week 25.
Judicial history
The US Supreme Court's decision in 1973's Roe v. Wade ruling meant the state could no longer regulate abortion in the first trimester.
The Bigelow v. Virginia was before the US Supreme Court in 1975. The Court ruled that state bans on abortion clinics advertising their services were unconstitutional as they violated freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
Clinic history
Between 1982 and 1992, the number of abortion clinics in the state declined by seventeen, going from 81 in 1982 to 64 in 1992. In 2014, there were eighteen abortion clinics in the state. In 2014, 92% of the counties in the state did not have an abortion clinic. That year, 78% of women in the state aged 15 – 44 lived in a county without an abortion clinic. In 2017, there were five Planned Parenthood clinics in a state with a population of 1,971,590 women aged 15 – 49 of which four offered abortion services.
Statistics
In the period between 1972 and 1974, the state had an illegal abortion mortality rate per million women aged 15 – 44 of between 0.1 and 0.9. In 1990, 745,000 women in the state faced the risk of an unintended pregnancy. In 2010, the state had two federally funded abortions. In 2013, among white women aged 15–19, there were abortions 1090, 1280 abortions for black women aged 15–19, 250 abortions for Hispanic women aged 15–19, and 190 abortions for women of all other races. In 2014, 55% of adults said in a poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. In 2017, the state had an infant mortality rate of 5.9 deaths per 1,000 live births.
| Census division and state | Number | Rate | % change 1992–1996 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | 1995 | 1996 | 1992 | 1995 | 1996 | ||
| South Atlantic | 269,200 | 261,990 | 263,600 | 25.9 | 24.6 | 24.7 | –5 |
| Delaware | 5,730 | 5,790 | 4,090 | 35.2 | 34.4 | 24.1 | –32 |
| District of Columbia | 21,320 | 21,090 | 20,790 | 138.4 | 151.7 | 154.5 | 12 |
| Florida | 84,680 | 87,500 | 94,050 | 30 | 30 | 32 | 7 |
| Georgia | 39,680 | 36,940 | 37,320 | 24 | 21.2 | 21.1 | –12 |
| Maryland | 31,260 | 30,520 | 31,310 | 26.4 | 25.6 | 26.3 | 0 |
| North Carolina | 36,180 | 34,600 | 33,550 | 22.4 | 21 | 20.2 | –10 |
| South Carolina | 12,190 | 11,020 | 9,940 | 14.2 | 12.9 | 11.6 | –19 |
| Virginia | 35,020 | 31,480 | 29,940 | 22.7 | 20 | 18.9 | –16 |
| West Virginia | 3,140 | 3,050 | 2,610 | 7.7 | 7.6 | 6.6 | –14 |
| Location | Residence | Occurrence | % obtained by
out-of-state residents |
Year | Ref | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Rate^ | Ratio^^ | No. | Rate^ | Ratio^^ | ||||
| Virginia | 20,444 | 12.1 | 198 | 20,187 | 12.0 | 195 | 5.9 | 2014 | |
| Virginia | 18,501 | 11 | 179 | 18,663 | 11.1 | 181 | 5.2 | 2015 | |
| Virginia | 16,913 | 10.1 | 165 | 17,058 | 10.2 | 166 | 6.0 | 2016 | |
| ^number of abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44; ^^number of abortions per 1,000 live births | |||||||||
Abortion rights views and activities
Protests
Women from the state participated in marches supporting abortion rights as part of a #StoptheBans movement in May 2019.
Anti-abortion views and activities
Organizations
Virginia Society for Human Life (VSHL), a nonprofit organization advocating an end to abortion in Virginia and is the oldest pro-life organization in the US.
Violence
1982 saw a surge in attacks on abortion clinics in the United States with at least four arson attacks and one bombing. One attack occurred in Illinois and one in Virginia. Two occurred Florida. These five attacks caused over $1.1 million in damage. On May 26, 1983, Joseph Grace set the Hillcrest clinic in Norfolk, Virginia ablaze. He was arrested while sleeping in his van a few blocks from the clinic when a patrol officer noticed the smell of kerosene. Between this attack and one in Washington, over $500,000 in damage was done to the two clinics.
On May 9, 2007, an unidentified person deliberately set fire to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Footnotes
- ^ According to the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade:
Likewise, Black's Law Dictionary defines abortion as "knowing destruction" or "intentional expulsion or removal".(a) For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgement of the pregnant woman's attending physician. (b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health. (c) For the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgement, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.