Black market birth control
As the General Assembly targets contraception, Planned Parenthood looks to Charlottesville
During last year’s General Assembly session, Delegate Richard Black (R-Louden) sent all 40 State senators a letter promising that Virginia “will lead the way in restoring the sanctity of human life.”
It’s a laudable goal for the Commonwealth, which executes more prisoners per year than any state besides Texas. Black supports the death penalty, yet he paired his letter to his Senate colleagues with a pink plastic fetus and graphic descriptions of abortion procedures. “Would you kill this child?” Black wrote.
Last year, a crop of conservative delegates introduced a litany of bills designed to limit women’s access to abortion. As the 2004 session approaches, pro-choice advocates expect Black and his cohorts will extend the hostility beyond abortion, trying to curtail access to contraception, too.
“Last year there were more anti-choice bills passed by the General Assembly than ever before,” says Ben Greenberg, who lobbies the General Assembly on behalf of Planned Parenthood of the Blue Ridge. “The same players are back this year. Given their successes last year, we expect them to be even more aggressive.”
In 2003, the General Assembly passed a “partial birth infanticide” bill banning late-term abortions, similar to what President Bush signed into law in November. Both the Federal law and the Virginia law are currently being challenged in court, largely because neither law provides an exemption when the life or safety of the mother is endangered.
“We’d be shocked if the courts did not find this legislation unconstitutional,” Greenberg says.
Earlier this year Gov. Mark Warner vetoed another 2003 law permitting “Choose Life” vanity license plates.
Right-wing delegates last year also passed a series of bills known as Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) legislation that would gratuitously require all medical clinics providing abortions to conform to hospital-style building and design standards. The TRAP bills passed the House of Delegates but died in the Senate Education and Health Committee by one vote. The close call prompted Planned Parenthood to begin building a new clinic in Charlottesville that will conform to the TRAP requirements, should they eventually get signed into law [see below].
Looking ahead to the upcoming legislative session, which begins January 14, local Delegate Mitch Van Yahres (D-Charlottesville) says he expects “a lot of sex and silliness.
“It’s a smokescreen over more serious issues, like the budget.”
He expects Republicans to introduce a bill that would ban universities from distributing emergency contraception pills, which prevent pregnancy by stopping eggs from attaching to the uterine wall. Last year, Delegate Bob Marshall (R-Manassas) sent letters to James Madison University and UVA, suggesting that in prescribing the pills the schools would be violating the law by providing “early abortion to unwitting co-eds.” Marshall’s science may be wrong, but he’s a successful intimidator: JMU dropped emergency contraception. To date, UVA Student Health still offers emergency contraception.
Abortion-rights advocates also anticipate bills restricting access to contraception and establishing legal recognition of the belief that life begins at the point when an egg is fertilized. For example, Greenberg expects a bill that would create a new criminal penalty for killing a pregnant woman, even though Virginia already has three special laws penalizing actions that result in the collateral termination of a pregnancy.
“The far right is ignoring these laws, because their agenda is to establish the personhood of the fetus,” says Greenberg.
He also expects Delegate Kathy Byron (R-Lynchburg) to re-introduce a 2003 bill that would give pharmacists a “conscience clause,” so they could refuse to provide contraception if they believe it constitutes abortion.
“We’re talking about birth control pills, IUDs, Depo-Provera, emergency contraception,” says Greenberg.
“This is probably just the tip of the iceberg,” he says. “We have a lot to worry about.”
A new clinic in Charlottesville
Planned Parenthood can’t count on support from Richmond anytime soon, so the agency has turned to well-heeled Charlottesvillians. This year, the agency raised $1.3 million from individual donors between April and July. Also in April, the group purchased land in Charlottesville for a clinic that will provide sex education, pre-natal care and a range of health services for women, including abortions.
The clinic will be designed to hospital standards in response to last year’s TRAP legislation [see above], says Planned Parenthood of the Blue Ridge Director David Nova.
Nova predicts the TRAP bills will become law if a conservative succeeds Governor Mark Warner, who is pro-choice. If that happens, the new Charlottesville clinic would be one of only two in the Commonwealth to meet hospital standards.
“TRAP could become law in 2006,” says Nova. “Our concern is that the great majority of clinics in Virginia will close. We can’t wait until then to act on this. This new building would provide some security for the whole state.”
Nova says Planned Parenthood’s presence has grown in Charlottesville, where the agency enjoys a sympathetic and affluent donor base. The new clinic will open this spring near Planned Parenthood’s current location on Arlington Boulevard.
The clinic will be named the Herbert C. Jones Reproductive Health and Education Center, to honor the local physician and abortion provider who, when he retired this year due to illness, left a vacancy yet to be filled in Charlottesville.
“No one could give enough money to offset what Herbert Jones has done in this community for over half a century,” says Nova.––John Borgmeyer