Lawsuit Challenges ‘Deceptive’ Virginia Abortion Amendment Ballot Language

A lawsuit filed in Tazewell County, Virginia, is challenging the language of a ballot measure that is set to go before voters in November which would enshrine a right to abortion into the state constitution. 

Founding Freedoms Law Center, the legal arm of the conservative advocacy group Family Foundation, announced the lawsuit on Thursday, which they filed on behalf of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Virginia Medical Freedom Alliance, and Bluefield town council member Meagan Kade against the state Board of Elections. The lawsuit alleges that the ballot language is “deceptive” and would have a whole host of consequences greater than what the language represents. 

“The language voters will see when they walk into the voting booth in November is engineered to obscure what this amendment actually does. Let me say it plainly what the voters are not being told. This amendment would enshrine into the Virginia Constitution an absolute right to abortion, at any time, for any reason, performed by anyone, with no meaningful safety standards. It would recreate the most radical abortion regime anywhere in the United States. The current majority in Richmond knows this. That’s precisely why they wrote the language the way they did,” President of The Family Foundation Victoria Cobb said at a press conference announcing the lawsuit. 

WATCH: 

“If voters knew what was actually in this amendment, they would not vote for it — so the politicians decided to make sure that they wouldn’t know. Well, today we’re blowing the whistle. Our argument is simple, and it should be non-controversial to anyone who believes in self-government. If the people of Virginia are going to amend their own constitution — the document that governs them, their children and their grandchildren — they have the right to know what they’re voting on. Not a slogan, not a sales pitch: the truth,” she continued. 

“And here’s the part I want every Virginian, no matter how they feel about abortion, to hear very clearly. You may agree with the underlying policy, you may disagree with it. That’s not what this lawsuit is about. This lawsuit is about whether the politicians who write it, write the ballot, get to lie to you about what’s actually on it,” she said. “They do not. Not under our constitution, not in our commonwealth, not on our watch.”

The Democrat-dominated Virginia state legislature passed the proposed abortion ballot measure in January. In Virginia, constitutional amendments must be approved by both the state House and Senate twice before being placed on a ballot and ratified by a simple majority of voters. The language voters will see in November reads:

Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to protect the freedom to make personal decisions about prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, abortion, miscarriage management, and fertility care; protect doctors, nurses, and patients from being punished for these decisions; and 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 lawsuit argues that the proposed amendment would deregulate abortion entirely, including eliminating parental consent requirements for minors seeking abortions and sterilization, allowing unlicensed individuals to perform abortions, ending numerous abortion safety standards, ending statutory rape laws, ending the state’s ability to restrict conjugal visits for prisoners, and limiting the state’s ability to regulate the assisted reproductive technology industry.

WATCH: 

“Each of these major impacts, among others, are not even mentioned in the ballot language. Yet we believe that if voters knew about any one of these outcomes, many Virginians would vote differently,” the organization’s legislative counsel Josh Hetzler said at the press conference.

“There are other problems with this language. For example, the ballot question deceptively implies that there will be greater restrictions on third trimester abortions, when in fact the opposite is true. This amendment would actually eliminate current restrictions on late term abortions, including a requirement that three doctors sign off and the limitation that there be a substantial and irremediable risk to the mother’s life or health,” he continued.

Democrats who passed the amendment have contended the language would not override many of those laws, although states where similar amendments have passed have gone on to see common-sense abortion restrictions overturned or challenged.

RELATED: Abortion Measures Pass in Seven States, Fail in Three

Hetzler and Cobb emphasized that they are not trying to block the amendment from the ballot but are challenging the wording of the measure, which they believe will mislead voters.