Members of the Virginia General Assembly are considering a bill that would prevent people from blocking access to abortion clinics.
Abortion clinics are health care facilities, but they're also often battlegrounds in the culture war. Senator Stella Pekarsky is a Democrat from Fairfax County who says one abortion clinic in Northern Virginia has been particularly targeted.
"And they have just undergone terrible harassment and obstruction and people getting in the way of women trying to come in and blocking them and throwing things at them," Pekarsky says. "So, we're trying to figure out how can people just go do what they need to do."
That's why she introduced a bill that would make sure protesters stay at least 25 feet away. Senator Glenn Sturtevant is a Republican from Colonial Heights who says the bill would have unintended consequences.
"It goes so far that it would make it illegal for Girl Scouts to be selling cookies out in front of a health care facility," Sturtevant says. "And if they went up and tried to engage with someone to sell them Girl Scout cookies, they could potentially be held liable for a misdemeanor."
House and Senate leaders are still trying to hammer out different approaches before the deadline this weekend.
