Instead of focusing on efforts to protect women and children from the harms of abortion, the Virginia General Assembly has spent the past two years prioritizing the financial interests of the abortion industry, ensuring a continuous stream of revenue from unrestricted abortions. In both 2025 and 2026, the Virginia General Assembly passed HJ 1/SJ 1, which sends a proposed constitutional amendment (“Question 1”) to the ballot for Virginia voters in the November 2026 general election. This dangerous, overreaching, and vague amendment would enshrine elective abortion into the state’s constitution until the moment of birth.

Question 1 would put women in harm’s way and undermine parental rights. It would abolish Virginia’s already limited safeguards protecting women from the trauma of abortion, including: 

  • Stripping away the vital regulations ensuring that women receive basic informed consent before an abortion;1 and 
  • Dismantling critical protections requiring parental notice and consent before minors receive abortions.2

Virginia already permits elective abortion (with limited safeguards after three months). The state currently has:

  • No health and safety requirements for abortion facilities; 
  • No reporting requirements when women are harmed by abortion; 
  • No regulation of chemical abortion; and  
  • No statutory protections against coerced abortion. 

Protecting abortion does not protect women; it exposes them to the deep medical and emotional trauma of abortion while ignoring the actual crises pregnant women experience. 

Proponents of Question 1 argue that abortion is a safer alternative to carrying a child to term. But the evidence says that carrying a child to term is often safer for a woman’s long-term health than abortion.3 Research has found that: 

  • National maternal death rates have dramatically declined since states began enforcing new abortion bans;4
  • There is a stronger decline in overall maternal mortality in pro-life states than in states that promote abortion;5
  • Women are nearly four times more likely to die after abortion than after carrying a child to term;6 and 
  • Compared to women who gave birth, women who had abortions had a significantly higher risk of death from all causes for at least eight years after their pregnancies.7 

Expanding abortion access will endanger women by harming the mental health of women and girls.8 Compared to women who carry a child to term, women who have an abortion face severe psychological risks, including 

  • An 81% increased risk of mental health problems, such as substance abuse and suicidal behavior;9
  • An elevated risk of suicide;10 and 
  • An elevated risk of PTSD.11

Question 1 does nothing to protect pregnant women from the main dangers to their health and safety. According to medical data, violence and despair are the true drivers of pregnancy-related fatalities, and accounts for 84% of maternal deaths.12 The most effective path to protect women is not expanding abortion but rather strengthening social support systems to combat domestic abuse and improving access to quality care. 

This bill only protects abortion. Question 1 uses language that even the judges in Roe v. Wade thought was too radical by enshrining a right to abortion up to birth. It includes an incredibly vague health exception that does not require the abortionist to try to save the life of the preborn child – even when the child is viable. The protections for contraception and miscarriage care included in Question 1 are already entirely legal and secure in Virginia. Question 1 would only exacerbate the General Assembly’s failure to protect women from the harm of abortion.  

Should Question 1 pass, it will strip the Commonwealth of any meaningful ability to ensure health and safety protections, parental involvement in dangerous abortions for minor girls, or the safety of preborn children from painful abortion procedures. In short, it would categorically deny protections to pregnant women and children in the womb. 

Question 1 prioritizes the financial interests of the abortion industry, ensuring a continuous stream of revenue from unrestricted abortions while leaving vulnerable women and babies completely unprotected.  

Help your family and friends to be informed by sharing this message with your community.

  1. Va. Code § 18.2-76.
    ↩︎
  2. Va. Code § 16.1-241. ↩︎
  3. David C. Reardon & John M. Thorp, Pregnancy Associated Death in Record Linkage Studies Relative to Delivery, Termination of Pregnancy, and Natural Losses: A Systematic Review with a Narrative Synthesis and Meta-Analysis, 5 Sage Open Med. 1, 14 (2017).  ↩︎
  4. Donna L. Hoyert, Maternal Mortality Rates in the United States, 2023, CDC (Feb. 2025), https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/maternal-mortality/2023/maternal-mortality-rates-2023.htm. This report found that, in 2023, when post-Dobbs restrictions were being enforced, the CDC recorded 669 maternal deaths. This constituted a 17% decrease from 2022 (817 maternal deaths) and a 43% decline from 2021 (1,205 maternal deaths), when abortion was enshrined as a federal constitutional right and relatively unrestricted. This trend has continued in the CDC’s most recent data in 2024, where 649 maternal deaths were recorded, constituting a 21% decrease from 2022 and a 46% drop since 2021.  ↩︎
  5. Hiluf Ebuy Abraha et al., US Abortion Bans and Pregnancy-Associated Mortality, 9 JAMA Network Open e264801 (2026).  ↩︎
  6. Mika Gissler et. al., Pregnancy Associated Deaths in Finland 1987–1994 – Definition Problems and Benefits of Record Linkage, 76 Acta Obsetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica 651, 653 (1997).   ↩︎
  7. David C. Reardon et. al., Deaths Associated with Pregnancy Outcome: A Record Linkage Study of Low Income Women, 95 S. Med. J. 834, 841 (2002). ↩︎
  8. David C. Reardon, The Abortion and Mental Health Controversy: A Comprehensive Literature Review of Common Ground Agreements, Disagreements, Actionable Recommendations, and Research Opportunities, 6 SAGE Open Med. 1, 1 (Oct. 2018).  ↩︎
  9. Priscilla K. Coleman, Abortion and Mental Health: Quantitative Synthesis and Analysis of Research Published 1995–2009, 199 British J. Psychiatry 180, 183 (2011); see also Jesse R. Cougle et al., Depression Associated with Abortion and Childbirth: A Long-Term Analysis of The NLSY Cohort, 9 Signature 164 (2003); Louis Jacob et al., Association Between Induced Abortion, Spontaneous Abortion, and Infertility Respectively and the Risk of Psychiatric Disorders in 57,770 Women Followed in Gynecological Practices in Germany, 251 J. Affective Disorders 107, 111 (2019); James Studnicki et al., A Cohort Study of Mental Health Services Utilization Following a First Pregnancy Abortion or Birth, 15 Int’l J. Women’s Health 955, 959 (2023); Nathalie Auger et al., Induced Abortion and Implications for Long-Term Mental Health: A Cohort Study of 1.2 Million Pregnancies, 187 J. Psychiatric Rsch. 304 (2025); James Studnicki et al., A Cohort Study of Mental Health Services Utilization Following a First Pregnancy Abortion or Birth, 15 Int’l J. Women’s Health 955, 959 (2023); Zoe Bradshaw & Pauline Slade, The Effects of Induced Abortion on Emotional Experiences and Relationships: A Critical Review of the Literature, 23 Clinical Psych. Rev. 929, 948 (2003).   ↩︎
  10. Mika Gissler et al., Suicides after Pregnancy in Finland 1987-1994: Register Linkage Study, 313 BMJ 1431, 1433–34 (1996); see also Kathryn R. Grauerholz et al. Uncovering Prolonged Grief Reactions Subsequent to a Reproductive Loss: Implications for the Primary Care Provider, 12 Frontiers in Psych. 1, 2 (2021).  ↩︎
  11. Maureen Curley & Celeste Johnston, The Characteristics and Severity of Psychological Distress after Abortion Among University Students, 40 J. Behav. & Health Serv. & Rsch. 279, 290–92 (2013); Lydia Hamana et al., Previous Experience of Spontaneous Abortion or Elective Abortion and Risk for Post Traumatic Stress and Depression During Subsequent Pregnancy, 27 Depression & Anxiety 699, 705–06 (2010); Arnold P. van Emmerick et al., Prevalence and Prediction of Re-Experiencing and Avoidance after Elective Surgical Abortion: A Prospective Study, 15 Clinical Psych. & Psychotherapy 378, 381–84 (2008); Vincent M. Rue et al., Induced Abortion and Traumatic Stress: A Preliminary Comparison of American and Russian Women, 10 Med. Sci. Monitor SR5, SR15 (2004). ↩︎
  12. Maeve Wallace et al., Homicide During Pregnancy and the Postpartum Period in the United States, 2018–2019, 138 Obstetrics & Gynecology 762 (2021); Four in 5 Pregnancy-Related Deaths in the U.S. are Preventable, CDC (Sept. 19, 2022), https://archive.cdc.gov/#/details?url=https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2022/p0919-pregnancy-related-deaths.html. ↩︎

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