Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Last week the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order allowing a controversial Texas abortion law to go into effect. The law is a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the two cases that now control abortion law in the country. Virginia Democrats are ecstatic, as this decision will be used to motivate their base to keep Virginia blue for the 2021 elections.

Democrats are enthusiastic that this decision has come at this time — it’s finally something they can talk about other than their own failed records here in Virginia.

Every moment they can spend talking about a law in Texas is a moment they don’t have to spend talking about their votes to keep schools closed, their votes to make life easier for criminals and harder for police.

When a Democrat is talking about Texas, they’re not talking about rising crime, inflation, the failures of the Virginia Employment Commission, the Parole Board or the DMV. Problems they have created by not listening to Virginians.

For Virginia Democrats, the days of “safe, legal and rare” are long gone.

We saw that in Virginia in 2019, when Democrats attempted to pass legislation that would have removed medical safeguards surrounding late term abortion.

This is the infamous “my bill would allow that” legislation from Del. Kathy Tran.

In Virginia, the debate isn’t about the detection of a heartbeat — it’s about abortion at the last moment before birth.

If Democrats like Ralph Northam and Terry McAuliffe have their way, the latest-possible abortions in Virginia would be legal.

Republicans want to preserve existing law which ensure that third trimester abortion is undertaken only in the most exigent of circumstances.

Every child born — either in a normal delivery or as the result of a botched abortion — deserves the chance to live and should be provided every chance to do so.

Lee Statue Decision

Two separate, unanimous decisions handed down from SCOVA have cleared the way for the Lee monument to come down.

The rationale behind both is simple: land covenants accepted by the General Assembly in the 1800s cannot compel the Commonwealth to continue to convey a message that is now contrary to public policy.

This ruling allows Governor Northam to lawfully remove the Lee statue from its current location.

While many will disagree with this decision, it did something that efforts in other parts of the Commonwealth, including the City of Richmond, did not do — it followed the law.

As Governor Doug Wilder pointed out, the millions spent on removing monuments in Richmond are millions that won’t go to fixing dilapidated public schools.

“With the problems that we have in our country today, with the problems that we have in our schools today, particularly education, it’s more important to improve the quality of education now, spending taxpayers’ dollars more wisely now on the kind of things that we need to do now, than this talk about destroying and taking down.”

Del. Tommy Wright can be reached via email at DelTWright@house.virginia.gov or (804) 698-1061.