Youngkin participates in March for Life

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RICHMOND — Gov. Glenn Youngkin joined hundreds of anti<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/abortion/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">abortion</a> activists outside the state Capitol on Wednesday for the Virginia March for Life, an annual event playing out for the first time since the Supreme Court ruled that abortion rights were up to individual states to decide.

“I’m just always encouraged when I see Virginians coming together in an extraordinary way to stand up for life,” the Republican told reporters before the marchers stepped off. “And this is a great statement by a lot of people — young people, older people, folks from all walks of life — to demonstrate the fact that we stand to protect life.”

Many in the crowd were thrilled with the high court’s ruling in June to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/24/supreme-court-abortion-ruling/?itid=lk_inline_manual_2" target=_blank>overturn the fundamental right to abortion</a> established five decades ago in Roe v. Wade. A number of young women carried signs reading, “I am the post-Roe generation.”

But Youngkin and others acknowledged that Roe’s demise has no immediate prospect of changing abortion access in Virginia. Youngkin’s plan to ban abortion after 15 weeks, with exceptions for rape, incest and to protect the life of the mother, has gone nowhere in a divided state Capitol.

Youngkin told reporters he was “incredibly disappointed” in Senate Democrats, who rejected the bill in committee. He cast his proposed ban as a compromise that would be popular with the state.

“Virginians elected a pro-life governor, and the one thing I do know is Virginians want fewer abortions, not more abortions,” he said. “There’s a vast majority of Virginians that do want to see us come together on this topic.”

A <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/01/27/virginians-like-youngkin-more-than-his-policies-poll-finds/" target=_blank>recent poll </a>from the Wason Center at Christopher Newport University found 43 percent of Virginians would prefer to stick with the state’s current abortion laws, which allow abortion in the first and second trimesters until about 26 weeks of pregnancy, and in the third only if the mother’s life or health is at serious risk, as certified by three doctors. Twenty-nine percent of voters would prefer the laws to be more permissive, and 23 percent would like them to be more restrictive.

Asked whether he was also disappointed with the Republican-led House, where the proposed ban has not even received a hearing, Youngkin continued to hammer Democrats.

“No, I am fundamentally disappointed in the fact that the Senate Democrats refuse to even have a conversation,” he said. “I’ve asked folks to try to come together and all they want to do is go further the other direction. It’s extreme where they are — abortion on demand, anytime, anyhow. That’s just so extreme for Virginia.”

House Speaker Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah) has yet to assign any of the abortion access bills filed in that chamber to committees, acknowledging that they would probably die in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Gilbert’s move also spares Republicans in swing districts from having to take what could be a tough vote in an election year. All 100 seats in the House and all 40 in the Senate will be on the ballot in November.

The Senate has advanced several measures to protect or expand access to abortion, including one to enshrine broad abortion rights language in the state constitution. But those are not expected to prevail in the House.

Hot topics roil Virginia General Assembly but lead to few new laws

Youngkin’s participation in the march drew criticism from national Democrats, who suggested he was looking to advance his prospects as a potential 2024 presidential candidate.

“In his bid for national relevance with the MAGA base, Glenn Youngkin is doubling down on his extreme, antiabortion bonafides,” Democratic National Committee spokesman Rhyan Lake said in a statement. “Supporting abortion bans that threaten doctors with jail time will be a 2024 litmus test, and Youngkin is desperate to pass.”

Youngkin sent mixed messages on abortion during his 2021 campaign for governor, when he kept his stance on the procedure intentionally vague. A surreptitious recording <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/glenn-youngkin-virginia-abortion-video/2021/07/07/1b551bee-df81-11eb-9f54-7eee10b5fcd2_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_26" target=_blank>captured him saying</a> that he would go “on offense” against abortion if he won the governor’s race but that he had to keep his antiabortion views quiet for fear of alienating independents.

As governor, Youngkin initially stuck to symbolic antiabortion gestures, such as an executive order declaring that his chief diversity officer would serve as an “ambassador for unborn children.”

But the governor threw his support behind a 15-week ban the day that Roe was overturned in June. He told the conservative Family Foundation of Virginia days later that he believes life begins at conception and that he would sign “any bill [to protect life] that comes to my desk ... happily and gleefully.”

On abortion, Gov. Youngkin says he’ll sign ‘any bill ... to protect life’

On Wednesday, activists who traveled from as far away as Bristol, Va. — a five-hour drive from Richmond — gathered at noon at the Bell Tower on Capitol Square for an hour-long rally. “Reza por el fin del aborto,” read one sign in Spanish, meaning, “Pray for an end to abortion.”

Speakers included the Rev. Barry C. Knestout, the Catholic bishop of Richmond, and Attorney General Jason S. Miyares (R). Miyares shared the story of a cousin who became pregnant one year out of high school and decided to have the baby and give him up for adoption, calling the child her “most amazing legacy.”

Youngkin did not join the activists until after the speeches wrapped up, meeting them as they assembled at the foot of a towering statue of George Washington on horseback. He walked with them off Capitol Square and down a couple blocks of East Broad Street, the eastbound lanes shut to traffic for the occasion.

The governor then peeled off as the group approached the Patrick Henry Building, where he keeps his office, telling them he had to go back to work.

George Polk Award in 2014 for political reporting for investigation of relationship between Virginia governor and wealthy supporter

Trinity College, Hartford, Conn., BA in English Literature

Laura Vozzella covers Virginia politics for The Washington Post. Before joining The Post, she was a political columnist and food writer at the Baltimore Sun, and she has also worked for the Associated Press, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the Hartford Courant.