Question 1 in Virginia Would Legalize Unlimited Abortions Up to Birth

Virginia voters will decide in November whether to write a abortions up to birth into the state constitution. Ballot Question 1 would allow unlimited abortions until a baby is born.

Early in-person voting begins Friday, September 18. A simple majority would adopt or reject the amendment and the result would not return to the General Assembly or the governor.

Olivia Gans Turner, director of the Virginia Society for Human Life, said the proposal is not the modest health-care measure described on the ballot.

“The hard truth is that this amendment is not about protecting women’s safe reproductive care, but merely more political action designed to make abortion up to birth permanently legal in Virginia,” she says.

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Under current Virginia law, abortion is generally permitted through the second trimester. Restrictions become more significant at about 27 weeks. After that point, abortion is allowed only in specified circumstances, including when the woman’s life or health is at stake – even though abortions kill and injure women.

Question 1 would replace that statutory framework with a constitutional right to kill a baby for any reason at any time. The amendment would declare that “every individual has the fundamental right to reproductive freedom, including the ability to make and carry out decisions relating to one’s own prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, contraception, abortion care, miscarriage management, and fertility care.”

Voters will not see that full language in the booth. The Legislature passed, and Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed, a shorter question:

“Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to (i) protect the freedom to make personal decisions about prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, abortion, miscarriage management, and fertility care; (ii) protect doctors, nurses, and patients from being punished for these decisions; and (iii) 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?”

The irony is that the amendment would end prenatal care and eliminate childbirth by killing the baby.

Turner said the governor approved that wording and that it “is written to deliberately deceive the public.” She said the amendment “isn’t about prenatal care, miscarriage care or fertility care, it’s about allowing unlimited abortion up to birth.” She also said the ballot language is “misleading about punishing those who harm a woman” and that “there will be no accountability under this new law.”

Turner said supporters in the General Assembly refused to add language protecting parental consent, even after an attorney appointed to a House of Delegates committee acknowledged that the amendment as written opens a path to court challenges to Virginia’s parental-consent law. She said debate also made clear the amendment would remove requirements that only licensed medical professionals perform or provide abortions.

“There was also no willingness to ensure that the amendment will not forbid the General Assembly from passing a law to protect a baby that may survive an abortion,” she wrote.

She said the amendment would block future laws to protect women from unscrupulous actors because it prohibits holding people accountable for harm in abortion-related activity.

“So abusers, predators or traffickers who coerce a woman or a teenage girl to have an abortion will not face punishment,” she wrote.

A lawsuit filed by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, the Virginia Medical Freedom Alliance and Bluefield Town Council member Meagan Kade makes similar claims.

The plaintiffs sued the Virginia State Board of Elections, the Virginia Department of Elections and county officials, arguing officials used deceptive ballot language and failed to notify voters properly before the 2025 general election.

Josh Hetzler, executive director of the Founding Freedoms Law Center and an attorney for the challengers, said the measure “goes far beyond the issue of abortion.”

“Among other wild consequences, it will eliminate statutory rape laws for consenting minors, since the amendment provides an unqualified ‘fundamental right to reproductive freedom’ to every ‘individual,’ without any limitation on age,” Hetzler said. “This is wrong and extremely dangerous for Virginia.”

Former Virginia Del. Robert Marshall warned the amendment “would allow minors to legally access birth control, abortion, sterilization, or transgender ‘sex change’ medical procedures or drugs without parental consent or knowledge. This effectively nullifies any minimum legal age of sexual consent.”

Kade said she cannot “stand by and allow my vote and the votes of many other Virginians to be effectively canceled out because the General Assembly has deliberately chosen to materially misrepresent the effects of the so-called ‘reproductive freedom amendment.’” She added, “I have a right to participate in a constitutional referendum process free from fraud.”

Outside money is already flowing toward the November vote.

Bruce Schlesman, president of Family Foundation Action, said the ACLU pledged more than $25 million for a “voter education electoral program” in the midterm elections and that, according to the ACLU, a portion would be spent on the Virginia abortion amendment. Schlesman said the amendment “takes away parental consent” and “will result in limitless abortion.”

Gans Turner said a “No” vote would not change current abortion statutes but would keep future limits in Virginians’ hands.

“This time every vote matters as in no other election,” she wrote. “We really are the last line in the sand to prevent Virginia from becoming the abortion center of the South.”