Tara Casey

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By Tara Casey • 11 years ago

Ghosts of general assembly past provide opportunity for redemption

On January 17th, the Virginia Senate’s Education and Health Committee will revisit the issues of mandatory ultrasound and targeted regulations of abortion providers, when bills seeking their removal are considered. In short, the contested debate over reproductive rights that threw Virginia into the national spotlight (on both news and comedy channels) is set to be had anew. However, this time, there is hope for change.

The General Assembly is in a position to deliver Virginia from its status as a bastion of government overreach into the personal lives of its citizenry. It has the power to change our state from one that chooses political pandering to one that relies upon sound legal and medical reasoning. It can decide whether we are a society that encourages responsible behavior yet exercises compassion when painful decisions are confronted.

To do so may require the General Assembly to correct the wrongs of the past. However, failure to act would only perpetuate these wrongs, with its own constituents bearing the consequences.

By Tara Casey • 12 years ago

A tale of two mandates

Last week, the Virginia Senate entertained a floor amendment that would require either insurers or the state to pay for the pre-abortion ultrasounds mandated by recently passed legislation. The estimated biennium cost submitted with this amendment totaled $3 million, which, in an overall state budget of $85 billion, barely registers as a drop in the bucket.

Nevertheless, the Senate Republicans clearly showed that this budget debate was not actually about the budget, just as the debate over the ultrasound bill was not actually about women’s health.

Senator Jeff McWaters (R) admitted as much, stating that the budget amendment was “not just simply a matter of an inexpensive test … [t]his is a matter for many of human life, of the sanctity of human ...

By Tara Casey • 12 years ago

What the Kerfuffle is Really About – an Open Letter to Governor McDonnell

As a Virginia citizen, and especially as a woman and a mother of a daughter, I have voiced my opposition to the mandatory ultrasound bill. Although I participated in the public protests to this legislation, I also sought to engage legislators and other constituents in discussions tempered with mutual respect and moderate voice. When the Virginia Senate passed this bill, I expressed my profound disappointment in what I viewed as the misguided failure of our legislative process. Nevertheless, I strove to maintain an open dialogue, free of platitudes and presumptions.

This evening, I learned that my Governor does not hold to the same rules in this debate.

Last Friday, Governor McDonnell sat down with National Review Online’s Jim Geraghty ...

By Tara Casey • 12 years ago

What I Learned in Virginia Today

February 28, 2012

Early this morning, I learned that Governor McDonnell had ordered a SWAT Team to cover a Candlelight Vigil I attended the night before at the Governor’s Mansion. Riot police were hiding in the bushes, while my two small children and I sang, “This Little Light of Mine.”

In the mid-morning, I learned that compassion and logic do not have to be mutually exclusive, when a Virginia Senate Finance Committee quashed a House bill that would have cut funding to low-income women seeking abortions when a physician had certified a gross abnormality and malformity in their pregnancy.

In the afternoon, however, I learned that, as a woman, I do not have the capacity to make an informed ...

February 28, 2012

Early this morning, I learned that Governor McDonnell had ordered a SWAT Team to cover a Candlelight Vigil I attended the night before at the Governor’s Mansion. Riot police were hiding in the ...