To the Editor:
Barbara Comstock, our 34th District Delegate, has just sent out her "Crossover" newsletter with the status of bills she has sponsored. What she isn’t telling us in her newsletter is her voting record on bills that are so harmful to women’s rights and health that Virginia is making national headlines. These bills include:
HB1 - the so called "personhood bill." If this bill becomes law, your right to have access to in-vitro fertilization, most forms of contraception, and abortion regardless of whether the woman’s life is in danger, could be severely restricted in Virginia.
HB 462 – before a woman can have an abortion she must submit to an invasive and medically unnecessary transvaginal ultrasound and be required to see the image and that image kept on file for seven years. I wonder if Del. Comstock or anyone she knows has had this procedure or would want this process for any other medical procedure. This is unfair to any woman who has to make the already very personal and stressful decision to terminate an unwanted pregnancy - a right guaranteed by the Supreme Court.
HB 1112 – eliminates Medicaid funding for the HPV inoculation program that protects young women against a virus that is a known agent for cervical cancer. This discriminates against young women who do not have access to health care plans and may not be able to afford to pay for this protection.
If this legislation, sponsored by men who will never bear children, passes, it gives the government more power than ever over women’s bodies and pushes women’s rights back into the Dark Ages. Perhaps Del. Comstock will reconsider her position following the demonstrations at the state capital and the delayed vote on HB 462.
This is not the Virginia we voted for.
Barbara Baron
McLean