With the Turning Point Suffragist Memorial just a stone’s throw away, Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed landmark reproductive freedom and contraception access legislation Wednesday during a ceremony at Occoquan Regional Park.
The new law, the governor said, protects the right of Virginia women to access and use birth control and reduces the cost of contraception across the commonwealth.
Held indoors at the Lorton park, near the memorial where suffragists were held during the Silent Sentinels demonstrations in 1917, the governor put pen to paper for the Right to Contraception and Contraception Equity Act.
Fellow Democratic leaders in attendance included U.S. Rep. Eugene Vindman; state Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell; Jeff McKay, chair of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors; and mayors Deanna Reed and Earnie Porta of Harrisonburg and Occoquan, respectively.
Dels. Kathy Tran and Irene Shin from Fairfax County were present as well.
‘The safe haven’
State Sen. Jennifer Carroll Foy and Dels. Josh Thomas and Marcia Price Were among the legislation’s proponents.
“In Virginia, we are the safe haven,” Carroll Foy said. “We are the last southern state to protect access to abortion care, we are the first state to have paid family medical leave in the South. So we know you can only win with women. We get it done, we do it well, we do it right.”
Ela Stanton, a 2026 Virginia Commonwealth University graduate and Americans for Contraception panelist, described her past struggles as a gymnast suffering from pain due to ovarian cysts, a condition caused by hormonal imbalances.
Stanton said a treatment via birth control helped regulate the imbalances and restore her to full health.
“Contraception is health care,” Stanton said, “and it can be used to treat conditions like ovarian cysts, endometriosis, and severe menstrual pain. For many Virginians like me, this victory brings peace of mind. It means knowing that something so important to our health and our future is written into state law. This win sends an important message – decisions about contraception belong to individuals and their doctors, not the government.”
‘Their share of skeptics’
Following Stanton’s remarks was Virginia Lt. Gov. Ghazala Hashmi, who like Stanton lamented former Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s multiple vetoes of the legislation.
“Everyone who’s worked on this legislation has faced their share of skeptics,” Hashmi said, “and faced the snickers from those who challenge the necessity of us in Virginia to ensure that we have a right to contraception. These skeptics don’t want to acknowledge the fact that as soon as the [Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization] decision came down [from the U.S. Supreme Court] in 2022, other forms of medical reproductive health care were also at risk – and throughout the country we’ve seen a long and sustained campaign to confuse the public … reproductive care is essential health care.”
Hashmi also noted strong concerns with House Bill 1232 in North Carolina, introduced in May, which seeks to classify abortion as first-degree murder and authorizes violent action against pregnant women.
She added there is not “any real assurance” that the Trump administration’s Food and Drug Administration will not reclassify contraception as “tools of abortion” to that end at the federal level.
Spanberger addressed the importance of reproductive freedoms on people’s livelihoods.
“It’s also an issue of economic mobility,” Spanberger said. “Research shows that when women have access to birth control and can decide if and when to start a family, they stay in school longer, they enter the workforce earlier, they earn higher wages – and most importantly, they have choices over their lives and the trajectory of their families.”
Spanberger then promoted Virginia’s reproductive rights constitutional amendment, which will come before voters in November.
The governor also reiterated her desire to avoid a state government shutdown in Richmond, only 13 days away from the budget deadline and the end of the current fiscal year.
Regarding the General Assembly’s stalemate on the controversial data center sales tax exemption, Spanberger stated her preference for a “consumption tax” that “incentivizes positive movements on the environmental front.”
“I am taking every precaution necessary as governor that I can, but I also will not in any way publicly accept or deem acceptable the potential for a government shutdown,” Spanberger told reporters outside the Turning Point memorial following Wednesday’s event. “Certainly, anybody in the DC news media knows that I was always adamantly opposed to even the threat of a government shutdown at the federal level. I remain so, even more vigorously so, at the state level.”
This article was written by FFXnow’s news partner InsideNoVa.com and republished with permission. Sign up for InsideNoVa.com’s free email subscription today.
