Virginia Governor Proposes Budget that Would Force Low-Income Virginians to Continue Pregnancies with Severe Fetal Diagnoses
For Immediate Release: Dec. 20, 2023
Richmond, Va – Governor Glenn Youngkin’s proposed biennial budget includes language that would remove coverage for Virginians eligible for Medicaid to end pregnancies with severe fetal diagnoses, like anencephaly, in which a baby is born without parts of the brain and skull. If the final budget includes this language, Virginians with low incomes will be forced to carry pregnancies fraught with suffering. Virginia denies state funding to Medicaid-eligible pregnant people who seek an abortion except in the cases of rape, incest, when their life is at risk, and in cases of incapacitating fetal diagnoses. This budget would strike fetal diagnoses from this list, interfering with low-income Virginians’ fundamental right to make decisions about their health and family. This is the second time anti-abortion Governor Glenn Youngkin has proposed this cruel budget language.
Jamie Lockhart, Executive Director, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia:
“Virginians clearly expressed their will last month by electing majorities who support reproductive rights throughout the Commonwealth. Shame on Governor Youngkin for ignoring the will of the people and proposing this cruel and discriminatory language to the budget yet again. People facing complex and tragic circumstances surrounding pregnancy, like a severe fetal diagnosis, deserve our compassion and support – not shame and funding restrictions that put necessary abortion care out of reach. We need look no farther than Brittany Watts in Ohio and Kate Cox in Texas to see how little anti-abortion politicians care about people experiencing medical complications in their pregnancies.
Receiving a fatal diagnosis for a wanted, planned pregnancy can be difficult to navigate, logistically, financially and emotionally. Yet, wealthy women, and other people with financial resources who can become pregnant, will continue to have the means to end a pregnancy after receiving a fatal diagnosis. This proposed change in the budget will disproportionately impact people of color who will be forced to carry pregnancies that will result in a stillbirth or in the birth of a baby incompatible with life.
If this funding is cut, low-income Virginians will be the ones having to go without access to the life-saving health care they need. Governor Youngkin thinks Virginians with low incomes should be forced to carry pregnancies fraught with suffering. Shame on him.”
This funding will affect cases in § 32.1-92.2 where the fetus “will be born with a gross and totally incapacitating physical deformity or with a gross and totally incapacitating mental deficiency.” In Fiscal Year 2022, the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) approved funding for 37 abortions due to fetal anomalies. In Fiscal Year 2023, VDH approved funding for 30 abortions due to fetal anomalies.
###
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.