UPDATE: State Senate scuttles 'personhood' bill

UPDATE:

In a stunning turn of events, the Virginia Senate has voted 24-14 to scuttle a bill that would have given fertilized eggs the same legal rights as people.

Sen. Richard L. Saslaw, D-Fairfax, proposed that House Bill 1, which had passed the Senate Education and Health Committee earlier today on an 8-7 party line vote, be sent back to the committee and carried over to the 2013 legislative session for further discussion and deliberation.

 Then Sen. Thomas K. Norment Jr., R-James City, the Republican leader of the Senate, rose to support the motion, saying that the issues raised by the bill are more complex and far-reaching than previously thought and merit further study.

 The vote effectively kills the bill for the year.

(This has been a breaking news update.)

Contentious bills involving abortion, "personhood" and the human papillomavirus vaccination all cleared a Senate committee by 8-7 party line votes before a packed hearing room audience today.

The Senate Education and Health Committee approved an amended version of a bill that would require women seeking abortions to have ultrasounds prior to the procedure.

The deciding vote on House Bill 462 was cast by Sen. Harry B. Blevins, R-Chesapeake, by proxy. Blevins left the committee room before the roll was called. Earlier in the session, Blevins abstained from a vote to ban abortions in Virginia after 20 weeks, causing the measure to die in the committee.

The House ultrasound bill, sponsored by Del. Kathy Byron, R-Campbell, was amended in the committee to match a Senate ultrasound bill that was amended on the House floor Wednesday at the request of Gov. Bob McDonnell.

The overhaul splits the ultrasound requirement -- mandating trans-abdominal ultrasounds where the procedure can be used to determine gestational age, but making the procedure optional in those cases where an invasive, transvaginal ultrasound is needed to make the determination.

That Senate measure passed the House, although its sponsor, Sen. Jill Holtzman Vogel, R-Fauquier, said Wednesday that she would strike the bill. Byron's bill, having survived the committee under withering testimony from women's rights advocates, now advances to the full Senate.

The vaccination legislation, House Bill 1112, also sponsored by Byron, had failed last year in the Senate when the chamber was controlled by Democrats. This year Republicans on the committee assured its passage.

Public health organizations say vaccination against HPV deters the spread of the disease and protects women from cervical cancer. Supporters said the government should not mandate the vaccination and have questioned, although without substantive epidemiological evidence, the safety of the vaccine.

"We're racing to the dark ages," for ideological reasons, lamented Sen. Janet D. Howell, D-Fairfax, who co-patroned the original bill requiring the vaccination.

The measure, which has already cleared the House, now heads to the full Senate for consideration.

Also on the way to the floor is House Bill 1, the legislation sponsored by Del. Robert G. Marshall, R-Prince William, that stipulates that life begins at conception and confers all the rights and privileges of a person to a fertilized egg.

The vote on the so-called "personhood"  bill, was 8-7 on the Republican-controlled committee.

All Republicans voted for the measure, the committee's seven Democrats voted aganst it, setting it up for a vote by the full Senate next week.  Similar bills have been defeated in voter referendums across the country.

The committee vote on the bill followed passionate testimony from women's-health advocates who argued that the legislation could create untold legal consequences for women seeking in vitro fertilzation, criminalize certain forms of birth control and lay the groundwork for a potential legal challenge to Roe vs. Wade.

 Following the vote, a number of specators opposed to the measure left the packed committee room and directed their ire toward Marshall, the bill's sponsor, while he was doing a television interview in the hallway.

"Shame! Shame on you!" they yelled at Marshall, an abortion foe.  

The fate of the bill seemed uncertain for much of the hearing. Senators and most others in attendance were aware of the national attention on the measure and late-night comedy ridicule of the "personhood" bill and other abortion-related measures.

"We are a laughingstock of the world because of things like this," said Sen. Mamie E. Locke, D-Hampton, who opposed the bill. "The individual rights of women are being challenged continuously," she said, calling the issue of a woman's pregnancy a matter between "them, their family and their doctor and their God."

 A number of speakers -- including a physician and a mother who has gone through multiple in vitro fertilization procedures -- were concerned that the proposed legislation was not precise enough to safeguard the procedure and provide for all the ramifications of how fertilized eggs would be handled.

Still others wondered whether forms of birth control that prevent fertilization  of an egg, or implantation of a fertilized egg in a uterus could become criminal acts.

 Proponents of the measure, however seemed ready for this concern. Sen. Stephen D. Newman, R-Lynchburg, proposed an amendment that specified that nothing in the law could be interpreted as "opposing the use of lawful contraception."

The amendment passed on a party-line vote, and a few minutes later, the committee voted to report the bill.

Immediately following the Senate committee’s advancement of the abortion-related bills, about 300 people gathered along 9^th Street at the state Capitol to decry the measures and rally for women’s rights.

 At first, the group, mostly women, gathered on the western side of the street, facing off with a handful of anti-abortion protesters opposite them.  

 While the hundreds of protesters chanted “Our bodies, our lives” and held a variety of signs, some reading “Stop the War on Virginia Women,” the anti-abortion demonstrators shouted back, holding posters of fetuses.

Eventually, the women’s rights rally moved across the street and protesters stood shoulder-to-shoulder along the sidewalk leading from the General Assembly building to the Capitol, cheering Democratic legislators as they made their way to caucus meetings.     

Marshall, sponsor of the "personhood" bill bypassed the gantlet after being jeered when his bill cleared committee earlier in the morning.

“Even Christ avoided stonings,” he said.

“I’m pleased. This is a very simple proposition,” he said of the bill’s advancement, adding that the amendment was fine with him. “If it helps people understand it better, OK.”

Katherine Greenier, director of the Women’s Rights Project with the ACLU of Virginia and one of the rally’s organizers, said she was disturbed by the measure moving forward despite weeks of public denouncement.

“This bill would lay the legal foundation to ban abortion and contraception in the event of a Supreme Court reversal [of Roe v. Wade],” she said, adding that there were “numerous other concerns” with the legislation.  

Marshall called claims that the bill would prevent women from undergoing in vitro fertilization “completely disingenuine.”

 As for changes to the ultrasound legislation, “The amendment is nonsensical,” Greenier said. “We’re now mandating that a doctor perform a test on a woman, whether she consents or not, that is medically unnecessary. I can’t think of a bigger intrusion into the doctor-patient relationship.”

The staunchly anti-abortion Marshall said he was disappointed that the ultrasound bill had been altered.

 “I think it was a reaction to this screaming out here,” he said, adding, “The women were already undergoing the transvaginal ultrasounds. This is nothing new.”

Asked if he felt like his Republican colleagues were succumbing to public pressure, Marshall said he could only answer for himself.

 “I don’t back down from this one,” he said. “There’s no reason to.”

Senate Democratic Leader Richard L. Saslaw, D-Fairfax, emerged from the gantlet to cheers and applause. Asked if the amendments to the two bills made them more palatable to Democrats, he responded: “Hell, no.”

He added: “Republicans are really screwing this place up.”

(This has been a breaking news update. Check back for more details as they become available. Read more in tomorrow's Richmond Times-Dispatch.)