The restrictive Texas “heartbeat” law that effectively bans abortions after six weeks is fueling Democrat Terry McAuliffe’s Virginia gubernatorial campaign against Republican Glenn Youngkin.
“If Glenn Youngkin is elected and he gets the House here, there is a good chance we will see Virginia go the way of Texas, and women will lose their rights here in the Commonwealth of Virginia,” McAuliffe, a former Virginia governor seeking a second nonconsecutive term, said in a press call last week.
“We’re at ground zero for this. I am running against an individual who is probably the most anti-choice women’s candidate in the history of Virginia.”
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The Supreme Court last week declined to block the Texas law, which bans abortions if medical workers have “detected a fetal heartbeat for the unborn child” and allows individuals to file civil lawsuits against anyone who provides abortions or “aids or abets” such abortions.
That set off a massive backlash from Democrats, with President Joe Biden calling for a “whole-of-government effort” in response and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pledging to bring a vote on a bill to essentially codify Roe v. Wade abortion protections. A possible Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of the law next year, as well as efforts by Republicans in other states to replicate Texas’s law, could make abortion a central issue in the midterm elections.
But the abortion fight is a particularly potent issue for McAuliffe ahead of the November election against Youngkin, the former co-CEO of investment firm the Carlyle Group and a first-time candidate. Virginia’s off-year election cycle makes it a testing ground for midterm arguments, and the state has been at the center of the abortion controversy in the past.
McAuliffe had already leaned into the abortion issue in his campaign by seizing on a secretly recorded video of Youngkin by left-wing activist Lauren Windsor.
In the video, Windsor presses Youngkin on his plans to restrict abortion such as “getting a fetal heartbeat bill like they did in Texas.”
“I’m going to be really honest with you. The short answer is in this campaign, I can’t. When I’m governor and I have a majority in the House, we can start going on offense. But as a campaign topic, sadly, that, in fact, won’t win my independent votes that I have to get,” Youngkin said.
McAuliffe put that footage in an ad saying Youngkin was “caught on video admitting his far-right agenda.”
It is an extension of McAuliffe’s campaign strategy to tie Youngkin to former President Donald Trump, who lost the state by 10 points in 2020. And it also cements abortion as an energizing social issue for Democrats in the race, countering the conservative focus on cultural issues such as “critical race theory” and transgender policy in schools.
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After Democrats gained control of both the state Senate and state House in 2019, they eased abortion restrictions, getting rid of requirements to have an ultrasound 24 hours before an abortion and get counseling on alternatives and expanding types of providers who can provide abortions beyond physicians. Virginia retains restrictions on third-trimester abortions and state Medicaid funding for abortions.
That, and more, could be reversed if Youngkin and the state legislature flip to Republican control, Democrats warn. Republican lieutenant gubernatorial nominee Winsome Sears said last week that she supports “heartbeat” legislation similar to the Texas law, but Youngkin has not gone so far.
However, Youngkin’s campaign sees a strategy to navigate the abortion topic without spelling out exactly how far he would go: press McAuliffe on how far into pregnancy abortions should be allowed.
Virginia lay at the center of national outrage over abortion up until birth in 2019. Current Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam was accused by Republicans of supporting “infanticide” after he defended a bill that would ease restrictions on third-trimester abortions, requiring agreement from just one physician rather than three.
“When we talk about third-trimester abortions … It’s done in cases where there may be severe deformities. There may be a fetus that’s nonviable,” Northam said. “If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”
Asked this week by Virginia radio station WVTF if he supports any abortion restrictions, McAuliffe only said that he will “brick wall to protect women’s individual rights to make their own decisions about their own reproductive healthcare.”
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Youngkin spelled out his strategy in the undercover video that McAuliffe is using against him.
“The abortion issue is an issue that the Democrats use to divide us,” Youngkin said. “There is such common ground for us to say, ‘Wait a minute. Where this crazy governor and governor before him have taken Virginia is so out of bounds.’”
