Governor of Virginia Shifts Position on Abortion Bill

The bill had drawn intense national attention in recent days, with a large protest by women’s health groups over the weekend and spoofs on left-leaning television shows.

In a political year that was suppposed to be all about the economy, this was the second instance in a month in which a public outcry  organized in part by women’s health advocates through social media caused a reversal on the issue of abortion. 

The governor’s decision not to support the bill capped several days of brinkmanship in which opponents of the measure lobbied furiously against it, galvanizing opposition by drawing on the image of male lawmakers mandating a procedure that requires inserting a probe into the vagina. One Democrat was prompted to denounce it as a “rape” bill.

Opponents presented what they said were 33,000 signatures protesting the measure. At the same time, the mostly Republican supporters in the legislature kept putting off debate on the measure, raising suspicions that the governor might be balking.

Finally, on Wednesday afternoon, Mr. McDonnell, a rising star in the Republican Party who is often talked about as a candidate for vice president, told Republican delegates to make changes that softened the requirements in the legislation. Some political analysts speculated that the decision was made with an eye to a broader national audience that might not look favorably on the passage of such a conservative bill.

This month the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation yielded to pressure by affiliates and women’s rights advocates and reversed its decision to largely end decades of partnership with Planned Parenthood.

In Virginia, in a written statement issued minutes before the House of Delegates was to debate the bill on Wednesday afternoon, Mr. McDonnell said that after discussion with doctors, lawyers and legislators, he had concluded that amendments were needed. He called for changes stipulating that the ultrasound be abdominal rather than vaginal. A doctor would be required to offer the next level of ultrasound, most often vaginal, but a woman would be free to reject it.

“Mandating an invasive procedure in order to give informed consent is not a proper role for the state,” the governor said in the statement.

The Family Foundation, a strong backer of the ultrasound bill, made reference to the Komen decision in a note to supporters blasting Mr. McDonnell’s reversal, saying that it was “extremely disappointed in this outcome,” particularly, it said, “given the strong pro-life credentials of this governor.”

The change — which passed the House in a vote of 65 to 32 — softens the bill considerably, but did not abolish the requirement that women have an ultrasound. If it is signed into law, Virginia would become the 10th state to require such procedures, though the requirement has been stayed by court rulings in two states, Oklahoma and North Carolina.

Specifically, the bill’s new wording would require a doctor to offer the woman a different type of ultrasound if the fetus is not viewable through an abdominal screening, but not require her to have one.

That opponents of the bill were successful in getting the language softened was a major success for them, particularly considering that vaginal ultrasounds are often administered before abortions anyway. A spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood said the group routinely includes ultrasounds “as part of the thorough medical practice of abortion care,” and gives the woman the option of viewing the image. But the group said a legal requirement that women undergo such a screening was politically motivated and “is the very definition of government intrusion.”

Erik Eckholm and Jennifer Preston contributed reporting.

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Virginia Bill Requiring Ultrasound Before Abortion Nears Vote

The bill, which could pass the Republican-led House of Delegates as early as Tuesday, is one of the stronger ultrasound laws passed by states in recent years. If it is adopted, Virginia will become the eighth state to require ultrasounds before abortions, a rule that anti-abortion forces hope will cause some women to change their minds but that women’s advocates call an effort to shame women and interfere with their privacy. The Senate, which is split evenly along party lines, narrowly adopted the bill this month.

Mr. McDonnell, a Republican who sponsored similar legislation when he was a lawmaker, initially voiced strong support. But the bill has drawn intense public attention, and a spokesman struck a more muted tone over the weekend, a shift that opponents said could mean that the governor might amend it before signing it. A throng of the bill’s opponents held a vigil outside the Statehouse on Monday in protest.

“If the bill passes, he will review it, in its final form, at that time,” said the spokesman, Martin Tucker. In Virginia, a governor can amend a bill after final passage by the legislature.

The nature and tone of legislation is particularly important for Mr. McDonnell, political analysts say, because he is seen as a possible contender for vice president on the Republican ticket and could be calculating how the bill will be perceived by a national audience.

Requiring ultrasounds before abortions has become one of the principal tactics of the anti-abortion movement, with similar rules now in effect in seven states and being held up by legal challenges in two more — Oklahoma and North Carolina.

While the Virginia bill does require an ultrasound, it does not require the woman to view it, making it less strict than laws in Texas and Oklahoma, where the doctor must place the screen in front of the woman.

In its current form, Virginia’s bill requires that the ultrasound find and monitor the fetal heartbeat and provide an image of the shape of the fetus. As in other states with ultrasound laws, this will often require a probe to be inserted into the vagina. The nonintrusive abdominal ultrasound, on the other hand, often cannot capture the fetus at its small size in the first trimester, when most abortions are performed.

Vaginal ultrasounds are often performed by doctors before abortions anyway, but opponents say that the legal act of requiring it for nonmedical reasons is a violation of the doctor-patient relationship. Delegate Charniele L. Herring, a Democrat who opposes the bill, said the requirement that the probe be inserted vaginally was tantamount to “state-sponsored rape.”

Anti-abortion groups say that it is a tool for “informed consent,” and that they hope some women will be deterred when they see or hear about the physical traits of the developing fetus.

As in other states, Virginia’s rule would impose a 24-hour wait between the ultrasound and the abortion, which critics say adds unnecessary expense and inconvenience. It would also require that a printout of the ultrasound image be placed in a woman’s medical record, whether or not she wants to view it. Critics also say that in the current bill, the cost of the ultrasound will be borne by the woman.

“This is a forced bodily intrusion, and it could be going against a doctor’s better judgment,” said Tarina Keene, executive director of Naral Pro-Choice Virginia. “If a woman says she doesn’t want to have an ultrasound, she shouldn’t have to have one.”

Delegate Bob Marshall, a Republican who plans to vote for the bill, contends that the argument does not ring true because the abortion itself is far more invasive.

“The intrusion is already taking place,” he said.

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Religious Groups Equate Abortion With Some Contraceptives

They contend that methods of contraception including morning-after pills and IUDs can be considered “abortifacients” because, these advocates say, they can act to prevent pregnancy after a man’s sperm has fertilized a woman’s egg.

“We object to the use of drugs and procedures used to take the lives of unborn children,” the Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison, president of the Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod, said Thursday at a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Their reasoning is that life begins the moment an egg is fertilized, and that if a contraceptive has the potential to prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus, it is aborting a life.

“They can and do prevent implantation or can cause ejection even after implantation,” said Richard Land, the head of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, referring to morning-after pills and citing medical advisers to his group. “IUDs emphatically do allow conception and do not allow implantation,” he added.

Several scientists and doctors said in interviews that this view did not reflect the way the birth control methods actually work. “There’s so much evidence for how these things work prior to fertilization,” said Diana L. Blithe, director of contraceptive development for the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. “And there’s no evidence that they work beyond fertilization.”

She and other experts said these methods are so effective in preventing fertilization that the chance of an egg and sperm uniting is slim. If fertilization does occur, the embryo runs a high risk of not implanting for natural reasons. While several medical Web sites, including some from government agencies, raise the possibility that the morning-after pill could affect implantation, Dr. Blithe and others said it had not been scientifically verified that the drugs work that way.

One morning-after pill, Plan B, contains a synthetic progesterone that blocks ovulation, said Dr. Anita Nelson, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. Recent studies have indicated that women who take Plan B after ovulation have a normal chance of becoming pregnant, and that Plan B does not prevent their fertilized eggs from implanting, Dr. Nelson said. Ella, the other morning-after pill, delays ovulation by blocking the body’s progesterone, she said.

She said that Ella was a hormonal cousin of the drug used in an acknowledged abortifacient, RU-486, which is given to women who are up to about seven weeks pregnant and stops the development of an already-implanted embryo. But the RU-486 hormone is a very high dose, between 200 to 600 milligrams, whereas the Ella hormone is 30 milligrams, Dr. Nelson said. She said that Ella had not been tested to see if it prevented implantation. But she added that the RU-486 hormone at low doses acts only to prevent ovulation.

IUDs also focus on preventing fertilization. Both Mirena, which uses a hormone, and the copper IUD impede sperm from getting to the egg, said Dr. Miriam Cremer, director of the global health program in obstetrics and gynecology at Magee-Womens Hospital in Pittsburgh.

Thus many experts say it makes it no sense to call these contraceptives “abortion agents.”

But Catholic bishops and evangelical leaders say that if there is any chance that a method may result in the destruction of a fertilized egg they will oppose it.

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