Virginia could follow Massachusetts on late-term abortion as voters consider November referendum

A Catholic author and speaker is warning that Virginia could follow in the footsteps of Massachusetts by loosening restrictions on late-term abortion as voters prepare to consider a pro-abortion constitutional amendment this November. 

Richard Clements argued in an Aug. 18 opinion piece for Word on Fire that the Virginia proposal would create a broad constitutional “right” to abortion and make it difficult for the state to protect unborn children during the third trimester.

The warning came days after Massachusetts Democratic Gov. Maura Healey signed a pro-abortion law Aug. 10 that eliminated the state’s previous framework limiting most abortions after 24 weeks. The law instead allows abortions at any point in pregnancy “based upon the professional judgment of the physician.”

Many Catholic voices have spoken out against the law, including CatholicVote President and CEO Kelsey Reinhardt, who asked Massachusetts’ Catholic bishops to clarify whether Healey incurred automatic excommunication by signing it.

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Clements described the Massachusetts law as allowing elective abortion through birth and warned that Virginia could become the next state to adopt similarly broad measures when they decide on Question 1 during the Nov. 3 election.

The ballot question asks whether the state constitution should “protect the freedom to make personal decisions about prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, abortion, miscarriage management, and fertility care” and “protect doctors, nurses, and patients from being punished for these decisions.”

It also asks whether Virginia should “allow for restrictions on access to abortion during the third trimester of pregnancy except when the patient’s health is at risk, or the pregnancy cannot survive.”

Clements called the wording “deceptively leading,” arguing that it frames the proposal around personal freedom and protection from punishment rather than asking voters directly whether they support abortion up until the point of birth. 

“The drafters of the ballot question knew that explicitly asking voters whether they are in favor of legalizing abortion up until birth would make the referendum far less likely to pass,” Clements wrote. 

He also argued that naming abortion in the middle of the question’s list of several less controversial health care decisions — including prenatal care, postpartum care, and fertility care — obscures the amendment’s primary focus on abortion. 

Clements noted that the ballot question also leaves out key language from the amendment’s full text. The proposed text of the constitutional amendment would allow for elective abortion until birth when deemed necessary because of the “physical or mental health of the pregnant individual.” However, the ballot question only refers to the “patient’s health” being at risk. 

“This is a crucial omission in the referendum because the concept of ‘mental health’ becomes infinitely malleable in such circumstances, essentially making abortion up until birth legally permissible for almost any reason, however flimsy or dubious,” Clements wrote. 

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He argued that the Virginia proposal forms part of a broader effort by abortion supporters to expand abortion at the state level following the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Massachusetts became the 10th state to permit elective abortion until birth, joining Alaska, Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, and Vermont, in addition to Washington, D.C.

Clements also criticized efforts by abortion providers in states that allow abortion to mail abortion pills into pro-life states, arguing that the practice undermines those states’ laws.

California, he said, has “perhaps been the worst offender in this regard.” 

He cited California laws protecting providers and pharmacists who mail abortion pills to patients in other states, including provisions permitting certain identifying information to be omitted from prescription labels. He also noted that Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has refused to extradite California doctors accused of violating other states’ abortion laws.

“So as things currently stand, one out of every five states in the U.S. now allows babies to be killed up to the point of birth, more states seem poised to do the same, and some of the states with rabidly pro-abortion laws are actively seeking to undermine the enforcement of the pro-life laws of other states,” Clements wrote. 

He argued that abortion policy tests whether society will protect its most vulnerable members, particularly unborn children. 

Clements cited former Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, who said during a 1977 speech in Washington, D.C., that the “moral test of government is how the government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in shadows of life, the sick, the needy, and the handicapped.”

“Profound words, but in need of extension to society as a whole,” Clements wrote. “One of the moral tests of a society — not just of a government — is how well that society treats its most vulnerable members.” 

Drawing on biblical accounts of children sacrificed to the pagan deity Moloch, he compared modern abortion practices to ancient human sacrifice, writing that “we are hardly any better than the members of the Bronze and Iron Age tribes who used to sacrifice their sons and daughters.”

Today’s society, he concluded, has “‘advanced’ to the point where we are able to sacrifice our youngest and most vulnerable children with the mere stroke of a governor’s pen and a few lethal pills.”

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