Virginians are voting this fall on three proposed constitutional amendments. We asked groups on both sides of each question for an opinion piece making their case. Here are the pro and con arguments for Amendment 1, which deals with reproductive health, including abortion.
You can read the full language of the amendment here.
For more on this year’s election, see our Voter Guide.
The writers
Vote yes, by Susan Anderson, vice mayor of Blacksburg.
Susan Anderson was first elected to Blacksburg’s Town Council in 2006 and is serving her fifth term as vice mayor. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Mary Washington College in 1980, majoring in mathematics and classical civilization, and a Master of Science degree in mathematics from Virginia Tech in 1982. She taught mathematics at Virginia Tech for 40 years, retiring in June of 2023. Anderson is the president of the board of directors of the Women’s Resource Center of the New River Valley and a member of the Virginia NOW PAC.
Vote no, by Phill Kline, former attorney general of Kansas and now a law professor in Virginia.
Phill Kline served as the 41st Attorney General of Kansas, as a Kansas district attorney, and state legislator. He presently is a law professor and lives in Amherst, Virginia, with his wife, Deborah.
* * *
You shouldn’t need political approval to make healthcare decisions. Vote yes on Question 1.
By Susan Anderson
Let’s be clear: Question 1 asks if you want to amend Virginia’s Constitution to protect your rights to reproductive healthcare. It is common sense and agreed upon by most Virginians.
You should be able to make personal decisions about abortion, birth control, fertility treatment and pregnancy based on your own values, faith and circumstances. Your doctors and nurses should be able to offer you safe, essential healthcare using their best judgment, without fear of being thrown in jail.
You shouldn’t need the approval of the politicians in Richmond — people who don’t know you, don’t know your family and may not share your beliefs — to make personal healthcare decisions with your doctor.
So, as you get ready to vote this year, here are my questions for you: What should the role of government be in your life? Should politicians be able to decide if you have a family? Should they decide if you can receive lifesaving care? Are they more qualified than you, your family and your doctor to make decisions about your healthcare?
I’m voting yes on Question 1 on the ballot because it’s not about the healthcare decisions themselves; it’s about who gets to make them.
This amendment protects your decision to use birth control or not; to use fertility treatment like IVF or not; to be pregnant or not. It gives you and your doctor the power to decide the best course of care when it comes to your pregnancy, particularly if something goes wrong.
Without this amendment, your reproductive freedom will hang in the balance with every change in political control. A yes vote ensures that our state’s laws support your ability to make personal medical decisions, no matter who is in office.
Now, you may hear some wild claims about Question 1 from people and groups that want to ban abortion and even go after contraception. That’s because they know that most Virginians support reproductive freedom, and they want to do everything they can to prevent this amendment from passing, including scaring you with misinformation.
But Virginians know the truth. We understand how fragile our reproductive freedom is, because we have seen the effects of abortion bans on our friends and families across the country. Abortion bans have endangered patients’ lives and even resulted in women’s deaths. These laws were never about patient safety. They were about taking away our reproductive freedom.
Our laws should support our reproductive health, not make it harder to get the care we need. And when someone reaches out for healthcare, they should not have to wonder whether a law written in Richmond will stand between them and the care they need.
A vote of “Yes on #1” means we keep our personal decisions where they belong — with us.
* * *
No parents, no restrictions, no protection: Vote no on Question 1
By Phill Kline
Do not vote on the brochure. Vote on the amendment.
On Nov. 3, Virginians will be asked to approve what supporters describe as a simple effort to “write Roe v. Wade into the Virginia Constitution.” But the proposed “reproductive-rights amendment” goes far beyond anything Roe or Casey ever required. You won’t see that in the ballot explanation — language drafted by the General Assembly — but you will see it in the text that would be written into our Constitution if Question 1 passes.
For example, here’s one of the sentences to be added to the Bill of Rights as Section 11-A: “The Commonwealth may regulate the provision of abortion care in the third trimester, provided that in no circumstance shall the Commonwealth prohibit an abortion (i) that in the professional judgment of the physician is medically indicated to protect the life or mental health of the pregnant individual or (ii) when in the professional judgment of the physician the fetus is not viable.”
In other words, the commonwealth can only restrict late-term abortion if the abortion doctor does not want to do the abortion. That’s not a restriction. It is a constitutional permission slip.
Current Virginia law places common sense restrictions on late-term abortion, restrictions allowed by the United States Supreme Court in Roe. If passed, Question 1 would strike down those restrictions.
And the proposal goes further still — it eliminates parental say in any decision by children relating to “reproductive freedom … contraception, abortion care … and fertility care” as “every individual has [that] fundamental right.”
Not every adult woman. Every individual. There is no age qualifier. And the amendment removes any ability of the commonwealth to argue that protecting a child and protecting parental rights justifies parental notification or consent before an abortion. The amendment states that the commonwealth’s only interest in “reproductive freedom” is supporting access to abortion. Period.
“For the purposes of this [amendment] a state interest is compelling only if it is for the limited purpose of maintaining or improving the health of the individual seeking care … and does not infringe on that individual’s autonomous decision-making.”
This does not protect a child — it protects the abortion procedure by elevating the abortion doctor’s judgment to a Constitutional standard that cannot be overcome, in any circumstance, including abortions performed on children.
Parental consent laws are gone. Any future effort to pass parental notification requirements is also gone.
This approach to parents and parental rights is increasingly present in our schools — treat a child as a sovereign and the parent as an obstacle. Question 1 moves that theory from guidance counselors and clinic intake forms into the Virginia Bill of Rights.
And the proposal goes further still — it constitutionalizes a zone of privacy for predators and traffickers to conceal their crimes in “one-off” visits to abortion clinics.
Abortion doctors rarely are pediatricians. They do not have an ongoing relationship with their child patients. Most often, the abortion doctor first meets the patient on the procedure table. Predators know this, and when their victim becomes pregnant or infected with an STD, the abortion clinic, not the pediatrician’s office, is their one-stop provider for their victims’ “health.”
And when an 11-, or 12- or 13-year-old is pregnant in Virginia, they are the victim of rape. If such a rape has not been reported to law enforcement by a parent, it most likely involves abuse by someone with authority over the child. In such circumstances, the child is groomed to avoid the question of who got her pregnant and, if pressed, is coerced into saying it was a “boyfriend.” Evidence shows abortion clinics most often don’t ask the question at all.
The proposed amendment will enshrine this “turning a blind eye” to child sexual abuse into the Constitution. It reads “the Commonwealth shall not penalize, prosecute, or otherwise take adverse action against any individual for aiding or assisting another individual in exercising such other individual’s right to reproductive freedom…”
Yet, it is the sexual predator or child trafficker that is “facilitating” and “assisting” the abortion.
Opponents of mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse have long argued that identifying the child victim to law enforcement “burdens” the right to get an abortion and “chills” a child’s access to “reproductive health.” The proposal constitutionalizes that argument.
The Bill of Rights should not elevate the abuser above their victim. The Bill of Rights should not extinguish parental rights. And the Bill of Rights should not prohibit the State Assembly from passing reasonable late-term abortion restrictions. Vote no.
