Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin vetoed a Democrat-backed bill on Tuesday that advocates say would have been used to target peaceful pro-life protesters and sidewalk counselors outside of abortion facilities.
The bill would have sharply restricted the activities of pro-life advocates around abortion facilities, including imposing penalties for “impeding” access to an abortion provider. In his veto message, the Republican governor said that the legislation was an unconstitutional attack on free speech.
“This legislation is an unconstitutional time, place, and manner restriction on the God-given, constitutionally protected right to the freedom of speech,” Youngkin wrote. “It creates new criminal penalties for what one might say or where they stand when they say it. If this bill were to become law, a citizen of the Commonwealth, the crucible of our representative democracy, could be jailed simply for carrying a sign.”
The legislation, SB 1324, would create penalties for anyone “who knowingly obstructs, detains, hinders, impedes, blocks, or delays another person’s entry to or exit” from a health care facility.
It would also block anyone from approaching “another person within eight feet of such person in the public way or sidewalk area within a radius of 40 feet from any entrance door to a health care facility, unless such other person consents to the approach, for the purpose of giving, tendering, or exhibiting any material to, displaying a sign to, or engaging in oral protest, education, or counseling with such other person.”
That provision would have restricted the work of pro-life sidewalk counselors who gather outside abortion facilities to urge women not to end the life of their unborn child and frequently offer help with their pregnancies.
The Democrat-backed legislation passed the House of Delegates 51-45 and Senate 21-19 in party-line votes.
Pro-life advocates said that SB 1324 was meant to chill their speech.
“This bill is part of a concerted effort to stifle efforts to provide oversight of abortion providers and prevent individuals and groups from counseling women away from abortion,” Victoria Cobb of the Virginia-based Family Foundation warned as the measure worked its way through the legislature. “SB 1324 represents a clear attack on the ability to peacefully voice opposition to abortion, criminalizing the very act of offering alternatives and support to women visiting these facilities.”
The law would have been similar to the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which makes it a federal offense to sit or stand in front of the entrances to abortion facilities. During the Biden administration, FACE was used to lock up peaceful pro-life protesters.
President Donald Trump has taken a drastically different approach, pardoning the pro-lifers targeted by Biden, and directing his Justice Department to only prosecute FACE cases in instances of extreme violence.
Youngkin on Tuesday also vetoed a number of other Democrat backed-bills, including legislation on gun control, pushing so-called green energy, and expanding recreational marijuana.
