Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia spends $40,000 on Digital Program, Calling Out Anti-Abortion Legislators

Planned Parenthood has a digital program running, calling attention to the records and votes of three first term Republican delegates in Fredericksburg, Petersburg, and Virginia Beach.

Richmond, Va – Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia has begun running a five-figure digital program holding Delegates Karen Greenhalgh, Tara Durant, and Kim Taylor accountable for their anti-abortion records and votes on HB212 (Greenhalgh) and HB304 (Freitas). Both bills were defeated in Senate Committees this session.

Delegate Karen Greenhalgh’s HB212 would have reinstated mandatory biased counseling before an abortion, interfering in the relationship between a patient and their health care provider. Even Senator Dunnavant (R-Henrico) opposed HB212. During a senate subcommittee’s consideration, she said she “can’t support scripting that [informed consent] into the code.”

Delegate Freitas’s HB304 was divorced from the realities of health care, and threatened to criminalize abortion care providers, creating further stigma around this necessary medical procedure.

Statement from Jamie Lockhart, Executive Director, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia:

“Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia are running this digital program to hold Delegate Greenhalgh, Delegate Durant, and Delegate Taylor accountable for their anti-abortion votes and so that their constituents know they cannot be trusted to protect their reproductive rights.

We know that the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, the court case that established the right to an abortion in the United States. If this happens, abortion rights would be decided entirely by state governments. Now more than ever, we must ensure that our legislators are standing with us and protecting our reproductive rights.”

Politicians, like these delegates, who try to restrict essential health care are out of touch with the will of the people, the majority of whom want abortion to remain safe and legal. Polling indicates that 79 percent of Virginians support legal abortion, and a majority of Virginia voters oppose abortion bans and medically unnecessary restrictions like mandatory ultrasounds and 24-hour waiting periods.

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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.