Anti-Abortion Virginia Delegate Kathy Byron Introduces 15-Week Abortion Ban
For Immediate Release: Jan. 11, 2023 (Updated: Jan. 11, 2023, 4:10 p.m.)
Richmond, VA - Today, on the first day of the 2023 Virginia Legislative Session, Delegate Kathy Byron introduced HB2278, which would ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. This bill would strip Virginians of their bodily autonomy, undermine health care providers, and prevent patients from making their own deeply personal medical decisions.
Statement from Jamie Lockhart, Executive Director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia:
“Delegate Kathy Byron made good on Governor Glenn Youngkin’s promise to try to ban abortion in Virginia by introducing this proposed legislation, which would hurt Virginians and put politicians where they don’t belong: in control of people’s private medical decisions. Let’s be clear: a ban is a ban, plain and simple. Like all bans, Delegate Byron’s proposed bill would deny Virginians the fundamental right to control their own bodies, lives, and futures.
Public opinion — and last night’s special election results in Virginia’s seventh senate district — is clear: Virginians support safe and legal abortion. At Planned Parenthood, we believe individuals should be trusted to make their own private health care decisions.
Already, bans have eliminated all or some abortions in 18 states since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, plunging our nation into a public health crisis and causing irreversible harm to patients and their families in vast swaths of the country. Virginia has become a critical access point for essential, time-sensitive health care – not just for people in our state, but for the entire region. It is unconscionable that Delegate Byron would see the devastation unfolding in states across the country and think that Virginia should be next. Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia will fight against this cruel bill, and we fully support a constitutional amendment to permanently protect reproductive freedom in Virginia.”
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Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia (PPAV) is a statewide advocacy organization whose mission is to preserve and broaden access to reproductive health care through legislation, public education, electoral activity and litigation in the Commonwealth of Virginia. PPAV works to ensure that individuals and families have the freedom, information, and ability to make their own informed reproductive choices.