House Minority Leader Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, Del. Tim Griffen, R-Bedford, and Del. Bobby Orrock, R-Caroline, returnto their seats on the House floor after hearing Democrats were denying their efforts to amend Griffin’s anti-abortion bill. (Graham Moomaw/Virginia Mercury)
Democrats in the Virginia House of Delegates forced their Republican colleagues to take an up-or-down vote Monday on a sweeping anti-abortion bill one lawmaker called “a slap in the face” to women who have been raped or suffer life-threatening complications from a pregnancy.
In a procedural move designed to put Republicans on the spot over the most extreme anti-abortion proposals emerging from their ranks, Democrats themselves brought a GOP-sponsored bill to the House floor that would have cut off public funding for clinics and hospitals where abortions are performed with no exceptions for rape, incest, severe fetal abnormalities or when the mother’s life is at risk.
The hardball move by Democrats to advance the bill just far enough that all Republicans would have to vote on it comes after a hotly contested 2023 election season that Democrats characterized as a referendum on preserving abortion access in Virginia. Forcing Republicans to go on the record Monday, Democrats said, would help illuminate whether they got the message voters had sent by electing Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate.