Several bills dealing with highly controversial social issues died in the House of Delegates this week.
A Health, Welfare and Institutions subcommittee voted 4-3 to kill a bill that sought to protect birth control, specifically emergency contraception, from the state’s abortion laws. The bill would have prohibited the state from limiting access to the morning-after pill and other birth-control methods approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
“It’s not completely unexpected but it is disappointing,” said Del. Kristen Amundson, D-Fairfax, the bill’s sponsor. “It was an effort to try to find common ground.”
Another Health, Welfare and Institutions subcommittee dismissed legislation that would have required sperm banks to give donors’ names to their offspring.
Virginia would have been the first state to outlaw anonymous donations to sperm banks, something that opponents of the bill said would have disastrous effects.
“Couples would go to other states for their donor gametes,” said William Jaeger, director of the Fairfax Cryobank. “Those desperate enough might try to go outside the system and try to secure donor gametes that have not been thoroughly tested.”
Del. Robert Marshall, R-Prince William, said he proposed the bill because children fathered by sperm donors want to know their heritage. “Most people would like to know who their dad is or was,” he said.
The same subcommittee effectively killed two bills that would have allowed state-funded medical research facilities to use embryonic stem cells in experiments. The stem cells would have had to be donated by couples who no longer needed them for fertility treatments.
Researchers value embryonic stem cells because they say the cells can grow into any type of cell in the human body, which could lead to cures for diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s.
“The hope and opportunity that embryonic stem cell research provides should never be closed to thousands of Virginians suffering in silence,” said Del. Brian Moran, D-Alexandria, the bill’s sponsor.
Opponents, however, believe the research destroys a human life at its earliest stages because embryos are destroyed in the cell-harvesting process.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
