Virginia goes all-out for abortion, ERA, LGBT agenda

Virginia legislature goes all-out for abortion, ERA, LGBT agenda

The state's radical left-wing push poses a serious threat to religious liberty and conscience rights.

RICHMOND, Virginia, January 30, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – On the heels of passing sweeping legislation to repeal the state’s abortion restrictions, Virginia lawmakers are also pushing a wide slate of measures to advance the homosexual and transgender agendas in discrimination, education and more at the expense of religious liberty and conscience rights.

Earlier this week, the Virginia House and Senate both voted to pass the so-called Reproductive Health Protection Act, which would empower various non-physician health workers to commit first-trimester abortions, repeal the 24-hour waiting period for abortion, and eliminate the requirements that a woman seeking an abortion undergo counseling and be offered the chance to see an ultrasound of her baby.

Differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill need to be ironed out before the final version is sent to the governor’s desk, but Democrat Ralph Northam is expected to sign it into law.



On Thursday, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring joined his counterparts in Illinois and Nevada in filing a federal lawsuit to demand ratification of the so-called Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), CNN reported.

Originally proposed and defeated decades ago, the ERA simply states that “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” But conservatives argue that if implemented, this redundant language would be interpreted as codifying into law non-rights such as abortion and have broad ramifications on everything from the military draft and sex-segregated prisons to women-only restrooms and male-only clergy.

Left-wing lawmakers across the country have been working to revive the ERA, and the U.S. House Judiciary Committee voted in November to retroactively lift its deadline for ratification. But the Trump Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion earlier this month declaring their efforts invalid, because the deadlines from its original introduction have long since expired.