Abortions may require ultrasound

Virginia Senate passes bill

The Virginia Senate has recently passed a bill that will require women who are seeking an abortion to have an ultrasound performed prior to the abortion. As a result of passing the Senate, the bill will now move forward to the House of Delegates.

The bill is now on the docket for Monday with the sub committee Criminal Law. If passed, the bill will continue on to a full committee, then to the House floor for three days before the House votes, according to Delegate Scott Garrett (R-23rd).

Delegate Kathy Byron (R-22nd) has sponsored this bill four different times over the past five years. Her persistence may have paid off this session.

“This same legislation was one we passed with a significant majority through the House. Then it got hung up on the Senate side,” Garrett said.

The past four attempts to clear the bill through both the House and Senate have ended in it successfully passing the House but being shut down in the Senate’s committee of Education and Health. It has passed in the House with positive support from an average of 62 delegates with only 36 opposing.

The bill has remained basically the same over the years, focusing on the need for women to have an ultrasound performed. A summary, as well as a complete version of the bill, has been made available to the general public on the Virginia General Assembly website. The summary states that the bill “requires that, as a component of informed consent to an abortion, to determine gestation age, every pregnant female shall undergo ultrasound imaging and be given an opportunity to view the ultrasound image of her fetus prior to the abortion.”

Garrett anticipates that the bill will follow past attempts and pass the House of Delegates. He believes that the successful passage through the Senate is due to the “shift to a more conservative posture within committees.” He is also under the impression that debate will definitely follow should the bill pass the House.

“We just need to stay focused on our family based values,” Garrett said.

Garrett said that ultrasounds and abortions have not been at the forefront of peoples’ minds up to this point of time. People are more focused on the job market, paying for gas and food, the current healthcare situation and maintaining a good education for their children.

Garrett, and many individuals in his district, think it is a vital issue, however.

“It’s important to know the gestation stage of any baby. The age is easiest to determine through an ultrasound,” Garrett said.