Democrats in the Virginia Legislature, just back into session for the new year, are fast-tracking legislation (H.J. Res.1/S.J. Res.247) to write abortion on demand into the state constitution.  If passed, the legislation will make the Commonwealth the abortion capital of the southeast.  It would also have extremely adverse consequences for parental rights.

The obvious and immediate purpose of the amendments is to legalize abortion.  Notwithstanding cosmetic language in Senate version (absent in the House language) that the state “may” regulate third-trimester abortions (abortions in the sixth to ninth month of pregnancy), the exceptions built into the text are such as to render any restriction meaningless.

Although most of the discussion about the amendment will center on abortion, with its proponents trying to sell it as “protection” of routine, early abortions, voters should not be deceived about the destructive impact the amendment would have on parental rights.

During Ralph Northam’s governorship (the governor famous for his radio interview about having a “discussion” with parents about what to do with a baby born alive who survives an abortion), almost all of Virginia’s protective pro-life legislation was repealed.  Only one remained in place, thanks to a Democrat legislator who broke ranks with his party: Virginia’s parental consent law.

In Virginia, an unemancipated minor cannot obtain an abortion without parental consent unless the minor can manage to convince a state judge to authorize it.  That protection was the only pro-life limit that remained in law because one Democrat legislator insisted that parents cannot be excluded from these matters.

If either constitutional amendment is enacted, that provision will be nullified, and no subsequent legislature could ever re-enact it.

Abortion advocates have always demanded that their procedure of “choice” be treated differently from any other medical intervention.  Anytime anybody wants to do anything of medical consequence involving a child in Virginia, he must obtain parental consent, in general written.

I can vouch from personal experience.  My sons attended Virginia schools.  Every year, I am compelled to sign a raft of documents authorizing any medical action on them.  Permission to take them to an emergency room in case of an accident.  Permission to take them to their pediatrician.  Permission to use an EpiPen if needed for an allergic reaction.  If they had any prescription they’d have to take during school hours, specific authorizations for it.

Virginia would not give my kid an aspirin without my approval.  But they would give her an abortion.

What’s wrong with that picture?

The language of the constitutional amendments, however, goes much farther.  It speaks of an “individual” having a  “right” to “reproductive freedom” (undefined).  “Individual,” not woman.  Part of the logic behind that choice is the gender ideology illusion that “men can bear children” (which is why Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services uses the term “birthing persons”). 

But part of the logic is also a more nefarious importation of gender ideology against parental consent or even notice.  If an “individual’s” right to reproductive freedom includes “fertility care,” that means that a minor could conceivably undertake “gender transition” procedures of a temporary (puberty-blockers) or permanent (“gender reassignment” surgery, AKA genital mutilation) nature, with neither parental consent nor even notice.  Not only could a child do that (since the amendment establishes the legal standard that one “not infringe on that individual’s autonomous decision-making”) without parental consent or knowledge, but he would in fact have the state on his side as an opponent of a disapproving parent.

We’ve already seen blue states (e.g., Tim Walz’s Minnesota, Gavin Newsom’s California) define themselves as “sanctuaries” for minors running away from home to “transition.”  Should Virginia join that chorus?

Do note, however, that whereas abortion and sex changes — the left’s “sacraments” — get special carve-out exceptions from parental consent or knowledge, parental responsibility comes roaring back if something goes wrong.  If your daughter is injured in that abortion, if your child is hurt by “gender treatments,” any corrective, therapeutic, or restorative medical care will require your consent (unless it’s a life-threatening emergency).  So, once the legislators and judges — who otherwise hector us about how “government should not be involved in reproductive decisions” — exclude you and hurt your kid, they suddenly give him back to you with all your rights and responsibilities intact.

Glenn Youngkin won the governorship of Virginia in 2021 in part because of parental rights: he fought on the principle that parents have a right to know what their kid is being taught in schools.  If parents have a right to know about curricular content, they certainly have a right to be involved in a minor’s medical and surgical treatments. 

But Virginia Democrats refuse to learn the lesson of 2021.  Although the Governor issued new model school curricula that stipulate that school districts should not be using names for kids in school other than the legal ones given by parents and should not be hiding these kinds of issues from parents, very blue school boards in northern Virginia have ignored them.  They haven’t gone as far as California, which now prohibits parents from being told what names schools use for their kids in school, but they’ve adopted a Southern strategy of “nullification” of state policy.

So, whatever you think of abortion, realize that the amendments being jammed through the Legislature represent lethal threats to parental authority over minor children in the medical field.  All parents ought to be able to get behind rejecting the erosion of their rights.

In Virginia, a constitutional amendment is a two-year process.  It must pass a majority of both chambers, a state legislative general election must intervene (November 2025), it must re-pass both chambers, and then it must be adopted in a public referendum.  The Democrat majorities in Richmond want to grease the skids on step one this month.  Ex-congresswoman Abigail Spanberger wants to use it to ride into the Governor’s Mansion in November.  Parents need to stand up and shout: Stop!

Image: jarmoluk via Pixabay, Pixabay License.