Alexandria Metropolis Council calls on Virginia lawmakers to guard abortion rights

City council members in Alexandria, Virginia, are urging the state authorities to guard abortion rights after Gov. Glenn Youngkin requested lawmakers to draft laws that will ban the process after 15 weeks of being pregnant.

Alexandria lawmakers voted unanimously on the decision throughout a contentious metropolis council assembly Tuesday that attracted each pro-abortion rights activists and anti-abortion protesters. The decision, which is essentially symbolic as a result of it doesn’t maintain legislative energy, requests the Virginia Normal Meeting to oppose new abortion restrictions and asks town legal professional to hitch litigation looking for to guard entry to the process.

YOUNGKIN TO PUSH FOR 15-WEEK ABORTION BAN IN VIRGINIA

“Abortion is an important reproductive well being service and its availability is a vital a part of making certain each American’s proper to secure and accessible well being care,” the decision reads. “That proper to a secure abortion has confirmed important to the flexibility of ladies throughout this nation to guard their well being, their lives, and the monetary stability of their households.”

The decision comes after Youngkin requested 4 Virginia lawmakers, all of whom oppose abortion, to draft laws that will ban abortions after 15 weeks with exceptions for rape, incest, and hurt to the mom’s life. If handed, the laws would reverse present state regulation that enables the process up till the third trimester.

Though Youngkin desires a 15-week ban, he conceded that compromises is likely to be wanted to move the laws. Concessions might embrace extending the ban till 20 weeks, which Youngkin famous is a extensively agreed-upon time-frame amongst members of Congress and different lawmakers for when a fetus begins to really feel ache.

The decision by Alexandria lawmakers additionally urges town supervisor to contemplate finances proposals that will guarantee low-income residents can entry abortion clinics, in addition to different reproductive well being companies. A part of doing this could additionally require the supervisor to work with town zoning division to make sure abortion clinics get “unfettered administrative approval in any business or mixed-use zone.”

The Supreme Court docket introduced on Friday its opinion on Dobbs v. Jackson Ladies’s Well being Group, ruling that Mississippi can preserve its regulation banning abortion after 15 weeks of gestation. In consequence, the court docket overturned the practically 50-year-old ruling in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortions nationwide, as an alternative leaving it to the states to find out limits on when a girl can terminate a being pregnant.