The Virginia delegate who submitted a horrifying partial birth abortion bill this week which, had it passed, would have allowed the termination of a pregnancy up until mid-birth, has taken the lead on a second bill, this time — ironically — to protect the “fall cankerworm.”
Democratic Virginia Del. Kathy Tran is the brains behind “Virginia House Bill No. 2491 — Abortion; eliminate certain requirements,” a bill that removes two central requirements to Virginia’s partial birth abortion regulations: that three doctors certify that the fetus in question is non-viable, and that partial birth abortion be allowed for reasons other than physical abnormality. The bill also allows abortionists to perform the procedure during active labor, after the woman has dialated and is in the process of giving birth to a living child.
Tran caused a stir when she defended the bill to the Virginia House of Delegates on Tuesday, confirming to fellow lawmakers that the bill, indeed, allows for an abortion to be performed as a living baby is traversing the birth canal.
Virginia House Democrats propose legislation to allow abortions up until the moment of birth
Todd Gilbert (R): Where it’s obvious a woman is about to give birth…would that be a point at which she could still request an abortion?
Kathy Tran (D): My bill would allow that, yes pic.twitter.com/UHgzU3EGDA
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) January 29, 2019
“Where it’s obvious a woman is about to give birth … would that be a point at which she could still request an abortion?” a fellow legislator asked Tran.
“My bill would allow that, yes,” she answered.
On Wednesday, Virginia’s governor confirmed that the same bill would allow medical personnel to refuse treatment to a baby born alive after an attempted partial birth abortion, if the parents did not want the baby to survive — essentially a “post-birth abortion.”
But it’s difficult to say that Tran lacks respect for any and all vulnerable life. After all, she is the lead sponsor on House Bill No. 2495, which, The Daily Caller reports, ‘aims to protect insects such as gypsy moths and cankerworms” (also known, colloquially, as “inchworms”).
A BILL to amend and reenact § 15.2-2403 of the Code of Virginia and to amend the Code of Virginia by adding in Article 1 of Chapter 9 of Title 15.2 a section numbered 15.2-926.4, relating to cankerworms; eradication; prohibition on spraying during certain months.
The bill actually limits the use of pesticides from March 1st to August 1st, during the time when cankerworms and gypsy moths are thought to be most active — and most destuctive.
Tran submitted the bill to save the inchworms on the same day that she submitted the bill to expand the scope of partial birth abortion in Virginia, so clearly she has her priorities straight.