Before the Virginia House of Delegates voted on a resolution that sought to enshrine the right to abortion in their state, Mark Earley, Jr. made an impassioned plea to his colleagues on behalf of life. In January, Earley called House Joint Resolution 1 “the most extreme and ideologically driven abortion amendment among any proposed in the nation.”
Unfortunately, The resolution passed in the House with similar legislation introduced in the Senate. According to the Associated Press, constitutional amendments cannot be vetoed by the governor, but must pass twice over at least two years, with a legislative election in between. After that, the public votes on the issue by referendum.
HJ 1, introduced by House Majority Leader Charniele Herring, claimed to ensure that every individual has the right to make personal decisions regarding pregnancy, including access to prenatal care, contraception, abortion, miscarriage management, and infertility treatment. The proposal also seeks to protect healthcare providers and others who assist individuals in exercising these rights from prosecution.
However, in a five-minute speech on the House floor, Earley said the legislation obliterates parental consent and notification, erases the possibility of common-sense guardrails around health and safety, and allows for the latest of late-term abortions.
“We can’t see clearly anymore,” he said. “We have all become so entrenched in our lines of thinking that we sometimes forget to ask the most simple question of all—which is what exactly are we talking about and who exactly are we talking about?”
In a candid moment regarding the what and who in the debate, Earley spoke about the joys of being a foster parent, despite the fact that the children often come from “unbelievably difficult circumstances.”
“And I know that despite those circumstances, the world is a better place for each and every one of them being here. I know that origin stories do not dictate destiny,” he said.
Earley noted how his five-year-old son, adopted through foster care, “had no business being born by the world’s standards, yet he is one of the most joyful kids I have ever known, and he’s brought unfathomable joy to me.”
Earley also told the Speaker of the House that he knows what it’s like to sit in a hospital and hold the body of his own child, miscarried 16 weeks after conception.
“I know what it’s like to see their face and see their fingers and see their toes and to have no doubt that it was a child in my arms.”
Overall, Earley called the resolution fundamentally misguided because it refuses to recognize the lives and futures of children.
“Humanity is always better when we respect the individual person and we see the image of God in them and when we live up to the creed that all are indeed created equal, endowed by a Creator with certain unalienable rights among which are life,” he said. “I’m asking the House today to try to break out of our entrenched thinking and to see that there’s another side to this story and to see that there’s another person involved.”