[TW rape] Virginia’s Antichoice Legislation

I haven’t been very good about posting updates on current legislation lately and I don’t want to clog up people’s dashes with relatively old-ish news, so I’m just going to make one large post of the situation thus far. Everything is from ThinkProgress, newest information first. As always, this legislation will effect more people than just cis women.

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PRO-CHOICE PROTESTORS LINE WALKWAY TO VIRGINIA CAPITOL |Yesterday, several hundred protestors lined the walkway to the Virginia Capitol to protest the many attacks on reproductive freedom making their way through the state legislature — including a “state-sponsored rape” bill that requires most women to be vaginally probed before they can receive an abortion. Because the Virginia Capitol’s rules apparently do not allow visitors to “hold signs, chant, yell or protest,” the protestors gathered in silent protest against the anti-choice bills.

Lawmakers delayed the vote on the vaginal probe bill in the wake of these protests.

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VIRGINIA PASSES ANTI-GAY ADOPTION BILL |  In a vote of 22 to 18, the Virginia senate has passed legislation “allowing private adoption agencies to discriminate against gay prospective parents.” Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) has pledged to sign the measure and it will go into effect July 1.

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Virginia Women Protest ‘Transvaginal’ Ultrasound Bill, SNL Spoofs It

Several hundred women locked arms in a silent protest outside of the Virginia State Capitol on Monday to register their opposition to bills that would “define embryos as humans and criminalize their destruction, require ‘transvaginal’ ultrasounds of womenseeking abortions, and cut state aid to poor women seeking abortions.” Protesters wore stickers reading, “Say No to State-Mandated Rape” and “Private Property: Keep Out.’’ Watch a local news segment about the event:

The so-called personhood measure passed the House on a vote of 66-32 and is pending before the Senate Education and Health Committee. The House and the Senate both adopted legislation forcing women to undergo the ultrasound with a wand-like device and Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) is expected to sign the measure. The bill has come to symbolize the ongoing attack against women’s reproductive health across America and was spoofed on NBC’s Saturday Night Live this weekend:

“A House of Delegates vote on a bill that would require women to undergo an ultrasound test before having an abortion was delayed until tomorrow after a short, contentious debate this afternoon,” the Virginian-Pilot reports.

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CNN Contributor Dana Loesch Defends Virginia ‘State-Sponsored Rape’ Bill As No Different Than Consensual Sex

This week, a Virginia state House committee overwhelmingly approved a bill requiring women to receive an ultrasound before they can have an abortion. Because the majority of abortions happen in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, many women would have to undergo an invasive procedure “in which a probe is inserted into the vagina, and then moved around until an ultrasound image is produced,” as Dahlia Lithwick explained last week.

CNN contributor and Andrew Breitbart blogger Dana Loesch, however, sees no problem with a law that effectively legalizes state-sponsored rape, saying the procedure is no different than penetration that occurred during consensual intercourse that “resulted in the pregnancy,” as Little Green Footballs reported:

LOESCH: That’s the big thing that progressives are trying to say, that it’s rape and so on and so forth. […] There were individuals saying, “Oh what about the Virginia rape? The rapes that, the forced rapes of women who are pregnant?” What? Wait a minute, they had no problem having similar to a trans-vaginal procedure when they engaged in the act that resulted in their pregnancy.

Listen:

Unfortunately, such a radical view isn’t unique to conservative talking heads like Loesch. According to Lithwick, an unnamed Republican delegate made the same argument in support of the bill, saying women consented to being “vaginally penetrated when they got pregnant.”

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Virginia Bill Would Halt Medicaid Funding For Abortions Of Fetuses That Have ‘No Chance Of Survival After Delivery’

The Virginia General Assembly has already passed a bill that requires women to undergo an extremely invasive ultrasound before having an abortion, and a bill that would give full rights to a fetus has cleared the House of Delegates and is waiting for Senate approval.

Now, legislators are continuing their assault on women’s access to abortion with HB 62, a measure that would prevent Medicaid from covering abortions for low-income women when a doctor finds that the fetus “would be born with a gross and totally incapacitating physical deformity or mental deficiency.” A Senate committee approved the House bill Thursday, sending it to the full chamber. The House already passed the bill.

The bill’s sponsor Del. Mark Cole (R) dismissed criticism that the policy could force the state’s poorest women to give birth to mortally deformed fetuses that have no chance of survival after delivery, arguing that religious people shouldn’t have to fund abortions:

“Why should the most vulnerable women in Virginia be forced to carry a doomed pregnancy to term,” Sen. Mamie Locke, D-Hampton, angrily asked Cole.

Cole is backed by advocates from anti-abortion and religious groups including the Virginia Roman Catholic Diocese. He contends that it’sunjust to force people with strong religious or moral objections to the procedure to pay taxes that underwrite publicly funded abortions.

“We’re not going to force the taxpayers, many of them who think it’s immoral … to pay for that abortion,” Cole said. His bill, like current federal policy, would allow public funds in Virginia to pay for abortions only in cases of rape, incest or pregnancies that imperil a woman’s life.

After the House approved the bill, Del. Charniele Herring (D) said that if HB 62 passes the legislature and is signed by Gov. Bob McDonnell (R), then “Virginia will show itself as a state that lacks compassion for the poorest women among us. It is time to stop beating up on the poor and destroying our safety net.” The Virginia Pro-Choice Coalition tried to make the same argument yesterday to the Senate committee. According to the group’s statement, “HB 62 will leave low-income women in Virginia with no options for a pregnancy that has gone tragically wrong.”

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Virginia Poised To Enact ‘State-Sponsored Rape’ Law Forcing Women To Be Vaginally Probed Before Abortions

Earlier this month, a bill requiring women to receive an ultrasound before they can receive an abortion passed the Virginia senate, and it recently cleared a state house committee with an overwhelming majority. As Dahlia Lithwick explains, the effect of this bill would be to force most women to undergo a stunningly invasive procedure for no medical reason whatsoever. “Because the great majority of abortions occur during the first 12 weeks, that means most women will be forced to have a transvaginal procedure, in which a probe is inserted into the vagina, and then moved around until an ultrasound image is produced.”

In case Lithwick’s description doesn’t completely drive home what this means, here is a depiction of the procedure that women would be forced to endure under the Virginia bill:

Simply put, it is difficult to distinguish a law requiring women to be vaginally penetrated by a long metal object from state-sponsored rape. Worse, discussions among lawmakers leave little doubt that its supporters understood just what they were trying to write into law — they just didn’t care. As an unnamed lawmaker told a fellow Virginia delegate, a woman already consented to being “vaginally penetrated when they got pregnant.”