One week after New York state enacted new abortion laws, permitting late-term abortions with the consent of one, instead of three, doctors, and for virtually any reason, a similar proposal in Virginia was defeated in the commonwealth’s legislature. With many believing the US Supreme Court will overturn its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling which nationalised abortion policy, individual state legislatures are examining the prospect of state laws to expand or restrict access to abortion.
The controversial proposal nonetheless landed Virginia’s Governor Ralph Northam in hot water when, during a radio interview, he seemed confused about the proposed law’s implications if an abortion is botched and the child is born alive. During a hearing, the proposal’s sponsor, Representative Kathy Tran admitted that the new law would permit a woman to request an abortion even if she was already in labour. Asked about the same hypothetical situation, Northam said the child would be “resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired.”
Critics quickly pounced, noting that the governor had essentially endorsed infanticide. Archbishop Joseph Naumann, chairman of the US bishops’ committee on pro-life activities, condemned these new laws that expand access to abortion. “This legislation is evil, pure and simple,” he said in a statement.
Northam, however, was soon engulfed in an unrelated controversy when a yearbook from his days in Medical School emerged, featuring a picture of a man in blackface standing next to a man in a Ku Klux Klan hood and sheet. Northam at first apologised for the racist photo, but later claimed he was not one of the two men pictured. Despite calls for his resignation on account of the incendiary photograph, he pledged to remain in office.
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