By Chloe Angyal • @chloeangyal • 12 years ago

BREAKING: Key VA Senate committee passes Personhood bill

Virginia’s Personhood bill now moves to the full Virginia Senate. ABC7 in Richmond reports:

A bill that would define life as starting at conception has been approved in a key Senate committee.

Eight Republicans voted for the measure, and the committee’s seven Democrats opposed it after an hour-long hearing on the bill that is similar to one in Missouri.

The bill passed after an amendment clarifying that no provision in it would restrict the use of federally approved contraception.

At least three times, the committee chairman, Sen. Steve Martin, threatened to have police remove opponents of the bill after they spoke out during debate.

There are only twenty Democrats in the Virginia Senate, so this bill looks pretty sure to pass.

I want to reiterate what I said on “Melissa Harris-Perry” last weekend: when we talk about giving fetuses Constitutional rights, we are talking about the government forcing women to give birth. Also, it would outlaw most forms of hormonal birth control! Way to go, Virginia!

New York, NY

Chloe Angyal is a journalist and scholar of popular culture from Sydney, Australia. She joined the Feministing team in 2009. Her writing about politics and popular culture has been published in The Atlantic, The Guardian, New York magazine, Reuters, The LA Times and many other outlets in the US, Australia, UK, and France. She makes regular appearances on radio and television in the US and Australia. She has an AB in Sociology from Princeton University and a PhD in Arts and Media from the University of New South Wales. Her academic work focuses on Hollywood romantic comedies; her doctoral thesis was about how the genre depicts gender, sex, and power, and grew out of a series she wrote for Feministing, the Feministing Rom Com Review. Chloe is a Senior Facilitator at The OpEd Project and a Senior Advisor to The Harry Potter Alliance. You can read more of her writing at chloesangyal.com

Chloe Angyal is a journalist and scholar of popular culture from Sydney, Australia.

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