VA Legislature Won’t Take Up Abortion Bills This Session

By Heather Curtis

WMAL.com

WASHINGTON – Time’s running out for the Virginia legislature to get bills out of committee. Their deadline is today. Republican Delegate David Albo decided they won’t be taking up a few abortion-related bills until next year. Some of them restrict access to abortions, while others would increase it.

Albo said he isn’t trying to stop the bills from ever becoming law. He said the general assembly just has more important issues to take up, including anti-terrorism bills and re-writing that state’s entire DUI code after the Supreme Court ruled the current one is unconstitutional.

Last year the general assembly spent eight hours discussing similar bills that never made it out of committee. Albo said Republicans probably wouldn’t vote pro-choice bills out of committee, and the Democratic governor would likely veto bills restricting access to abortions.

“I just didn’t really want to spend eight hours on things that had absolutely no chance of ever becoming law, and so we will have the full discussion this year, just like we did last year,” Albo said.

Democrats like Delegate Sam Rasoul feel Albo’s trying to make sure these bills never get discussed.

“All of our ideas deserve at least a chance at a fair hearing,” Rasoul said.

Albo said they had hours last year to argue their case on each bill, and they will have another chance to get the bills out of committee next year.

Democratic Delegate Jennifer Boysko thinks the reasoning behind the bill is political, not related to time constraints.

“Chairman Albo’s letter is consistent with the Republican pattern of refusing to own tough votes here in Virginia,” said Democratic Delegate Jennifer Boysko.