RICHMOND, Va. — Lawmakers in the Virginia House of Delegates — controlled by Democrats who flipped the chamber in November after campaigning on abortion rights — decisively voted down a bill that would have instituted a near-total abortion ban.
On a bipartisan 8-0 vote Wednesday night, a House subcommittee rejected the measure that would have prohibited abortions except in cases necessary to save the mother’s life, the Richmond-Times Dispatch reported .
Bill sponsor Tim Griffin, a freshman Republican from Bedford, faced questions about the implications his bill would have for miscarriage care and rape victims. He responded that the bill was about “protecting unborn children and women,” according to the newspaper.
On a party-line vote, Democrats on the same panel voted down a different bill that would have prohibited abortions sought on the basis of the sex or race of the fetus.
Abortion was a central theme in last year’s legislative elections, when every General Assembly seat was on the ballot. Democrats campaigned on a promise to protect access to abortion in Virginia, which has some of the South’s most permissive laws and is the only state in the region that has not imposed new abortion restrictions since Roe v. Wade fell . The issue was seen as helping power Democrats’ ability to hold the state Senate and flip control of the House.