Youngkin's abortion funding amendment changes budget language that says state money cannot be spent on abortion services, except otherwise as required by federal law or state statute, by dropping the words āstate statute."
State law now allows state funding of abortions of pregnancies with severe fetal diagnoses, like anencephaly, a birth defect when a baby is born without parts of the brain and skull, and chromosomal issues like Trisomy 13, for which most babies die within their first year.
Last year, the state paid $31,851 for 28 such abortions. In 2022, it paid $13,358 for 37 procedures.
āThis is just extremely cruel and discriminatory,ā said Jamie Lockhart, executive director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia.
Tarina Keene, director of advocacy organization ReproRising called the cut "callous."
"By targeting vulnerable families in their time of grief, he demonstrates a willingness to intrude into personal matters," she said in a statement.
Last fall two women spoke with The Times-Dispatch about their complicated pregnancies and agonizing decisions.
Virginia Commonwealth University professor Karen McIntyre said abortion was a way to spare her child the pain of living a short and challenging life.
At 16 weeks, she said, testing revealed fetal anomalies ā a heart defect, along with Trisomy 21, the marker for Down syndrome, and āother chromosomal abnormalities that were unclear.ā McIntyre said the diagnosis raised an agonizing choice.
Mary Cronquist of Stafford County chose to carry ā and later bury ā her anencephalic son. The process was what she said that she needed to grieve and aligned with her "pro-life" stance on abortion.
Youngkin's alternative budget
Youngkin's 242 amendments - which he calls his Common Ground Budget - are meant as an alternative to a General Assembly budget. The legislature's budget includes an expansion of sales taxes to cover digital services and business to business deals that he says is a tax increase that would derail Virginia's recent economic progress.
By dropping his own proposal for income tax cuts and some $600 million of his own spending priorities, while preserving most General Assembly priorities, Youngkin said he hopes Virginia can land a new two-year budget in plenty of time for the July 1 start of the next fiscal year.
Legislators return to Richmond April 17 to take up the governor's proposed amendments and vetoes and the budget will be the marquee issue.
Democrats were skeptical.
Speaker of the House Don Scott Jr., D-Portsmouth, said: āWe knew that the Governor might not see eye-to-eye on how those needs are met, and we anticipated some line-item vetoes, but this is an attempt to rewrite the budget. He doesnāt get to do that."
House Majority Leader Charniele Herring, D-Alexandria, said: āGovernor Youngkin all but vetoed the budget with his amendments."
Seeks change at ABC
Youngkin's budget amendments would also:
* End the independent status of the troubled Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority, making it an executive branch agency,
* Cut $1.5 million a year for 20 more tax department enforcement officials, and
* Eliminate $200,000 the General Assembly voted to return Virginia to the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC). The multi-state group uses voter registration and motor vehicle department data to help election officials maintain accurate voter lists. The nonprofit has been the target of some Republican politicians who believe its data are skewed.
Phil Boykin, president and chief executive officer of Virginia Beer Wholesalers Association, said his members have been pushing to curtail political influence at ABC, and supported budget language to give the authority more independence.
"Recent events at ABC have reinforced those concerns," he said. ABC has been under pressure to cut costs and boost dividends it pays the state.
Free clinics, nursing homes
The amendments also would trim $500,000 year from state payments to free clinics, bringing that annual payment down to $6.3 million. Virginiaās 60-plus free clinics provide care to some 75,000 people a year, amounting to some $114 million worth of care in 2022, but theyāve been badly squeezed by rising costs and volunteersā limited time and resources.
Youngkinās proposals also cut in half an increase for nursing homes, tied to a new program meant to provide financial incentives for improved care, limiting it to $20.4 million a year.
The amendments also reduce additional funding to help state mental hospitals trying to find community places for patients who no longer need hospital care from $6 million to $3 million a year. It also cuts spending meant to expand permanent supportive housing for people with disabilities ā places to live linked to services individuals need to live independently ā by $3 million year.
On housing, Youngkin proposed removing authorization to use money in the Low-Income Energy Efficiency Program Fund to launch a program to help first time homebuyers with down payments and to help tenants in mobile home parks acquire the lots on which their homes stand, directing $5 million from the fund for the stateās Industrial Revitalization Program.
His amendments also cut $300,000 from the Virginia Eviction Reduction Program.
Motion Picture Opportunity Fund
The amendments added $50 million for state economic development incentive payments and $1 million to the Motion Picture Opportunity Fund.
They also would provide an additional $2.0 million for the Virginia Battlefield Preservation Fund.
Richmond region
In the Richmond region, the amendments would remove $1 million the General Assembly set to establish a child care center for state employees via a partnership with Reynolds Community College.
They also expand the scope of a state study of new office space options, removing language that prevented executive branch agencies from permanently relocating from the Monroe Building, and preventing the Virginia Lottery from signing a lease to permanently relocate prior to July 1, 2025.
The amendments call for spending cuts linked to a measure Youngkin vetoed to step up efforts to control invasive plant species, including $485,000 a year at the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, $940,000 a year at the Department of Forestry and $775,000 a year at the Department of Environmental Quality.
Youngkinās vetoes of Senate Bill 719 and House Bill 1244, which would have restricted the use of solitary confinement in state prisons, led him to cut $3.2 million a year as well as 22 counselor and 15 mental health clinic positions from the Department of Corrections budget.
Abortion in America: How access and attitudes have changed through the centuries
Intro
1880: Every state has laws restricting or banning abortions
1960s: Pressure from activists creates reform in some states ahead of Roe v. Wade
1973: Roe v. Wade makes abortion safe and legal in all 50 states
Late-1970s: Racial fearmongering creates rise of the āMoral Majorityā
2022: Supreme Court poised to overturn Roe v. Wade