Question 1 does not merely protect today’s abortion laws. It would place abortion in Virginia’s Bill of Rights as a fundamental right and force every future protection to survive the most demanding constitutional review. That changes who governs. Decisions now made through public debate, elections, and legislation would increasingly be made through lawsuits and judicial rulings.
Virginia currently regulates abortion through statutes. Those laws can be debated in committee, amended by elected representatives, signed or vetoed by a governor, and reconsidered when voters change the government. That process keeps public policy accountable to the people.
A constitutional right works differently. Once abortion receives that status, lawmakers may still pass legislation, but every requirement can be challenged as a direct or indirect burden. Virginia would then have to prove that the law serves the amendment’s narrowly defined compelling state interest and uses the least restrictive means. The courtroom, rather than the legislature, becomes the final arena.
Consider informed consent. Virginia law presently requires informed written consent before an abortion. That reflects a simple principle: a woman should receive information and knowingly authorize a serious medical procedure. Under Question 1, litigants could argue that consent requirements burden autonomous decision-making or exceed the least restrictive means.
Consider parental involvement. Virginia has laws requiring consent for a minor’s abortion, subject to a judicial bypass. The proposed amendment does not expressly preserve those laws. An amendment that would have protected parental-consent requirements was offered and rejected. If Question 1 passes, judges may be asked whether parental consent is an unconstitutional burden on the fundamental right of “every individual.”
Consider medical and viability safeguards. Virginia law requires abortions after the second trimester to be performed in a licensed hospital, with certification from the attending physician and two consulting physicians that continuing the pregnancy is likely to cause death or substantially and irremediably impair physical or mental health. It also requires available life-support measures when there is visible evidence of viability. Those requirements could face challenge under the amendment’s new constitutional test.
We should not promise that every existing law will automatically fall. No one knows how every future court will rule. That uncertainty is itself a reason to vote no. Constitutional language should clarify the law, not hand judges broad terms and ask Virginians to discover their meaning through years of litigation.
The amendment is also self-executing. It would not require the General Assembly to pass an implementing law before it could be invoked. Plaintiffs could rely upon it directly, asking courts to block current safeguards or future legislation. Campaign assurances would not control the cases. The constitutional words would.
This transfer of authority matters to Virginians who disagree about particular abortion limits. Elections give citizens a way to correct policy. Constitutionalizing abortion removes that flexibility. A future medical development, public scandal, change in viability, or discovered abuse could demand a legislative response, yet lawmakers would remain confined by a right written in sweeping terms.
We believe the people of Virginia should retain their voice. We should be free to protect parents, require informed consent, establish medical standards, defend viable children, and respond to new facts through representative government. Courts should enforce clear constitutional boundaries, not become the permanent managers of abortion policy.
Question 1 does not settle the controversy. It relocates it – from the ballot box to the courthouse, from elected lawmakers to unelected judges, and from laws we can amend to constitutional doctrine that is extraordinarily difficult to correct.
We should keep this decision accountable to the people. We should vote no on this dangerous constitutional amendment.
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