Members of the General Assembly are about to return to Richmond and consider hundreds of bills. One of them is related to abortion rights and other states.
Imagine the scenario: a woman from Texas comes to Virginia seeking an abortion she could not get in her home state. Then at some point in the future, prosecutors in Texas might want to extradite the woman or her doctor to face charges for actions that are totally legal in Virginia.
"These are laws that really disproportionately target people of color and target low-income people," says Kelsey Cowger at Progress Virginia. "They tend to be the people who are disproportionately prosecuted for abortion-related crimes in their home states, miscarriage-related crimes. And they tend to be charged more aggressively than their counterparts who are white or higher income."
Last year, Senator Barbara Favola of Arlington had a bill that would’ve called for Virginia to ignore extraditions for reproductive services. Governor Glenn Youngkin vetoed it.
"His veto message last year was rather confusing," she says. "He talked about not having the need to protect out-of-state physicians. That was incorrect. That was an incorrect reading of the bill."
Favola says the bill protects Virginia doctors who provide services and out-of-state women who need reproductive services.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
