Youngkin Budget Amendments Include Gas Tax Holiday, Ban on Taxpayer-Funded Abortions, and Law Against Picketing Justices

Governor Glenn Youngkin is sending 35 budget amendments to the General Assembly to approve on Friday, including a gas tax holiday, a ban on using state Medicaid funds for certain abortions, and a law that would make it a class 6 felony to picket or demonstrate outside a courthouse or residences of justices and judges. The Democratic Senate is expected to block Youngkin’s controversial changes, but eyes are on State Senator Joe Morrissey (D-Richmond) to see if he’ll vote with Republicans to approve the abortion funding ban.

Federally, the Hyde Amendment bans spending federal money on abortion, with exceptions in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother. Virginia law includes an extra exception in cases where a physician “believes the fetus will be born with a gross and totally incapacitating physical deformity or with a gross and totally incapacitating mental deficiency.”

Youngkin’s amendment would block any state funds from the budget being used for abortion.

“So most Americans, but certainly most Virginians, oppose the idea of using tax dollars to pay for abortions,” Virginia Society for Human Life President Olivia Turner told The Virginia Star

Turner said that’s a strategy that Republicans successfully used once before, using their majorities in the General Assembly to bundle a ban into the 2019 budget despite having a Democratic governor. But for that to happen this year, a Democratic senator needs to flip on votes to approve the amendment.

Morrissey declined to comment on Thursday.

Turner said, “One hopes that Senator Morrissey, who has made it clear that he considers himself to be a pro-life advocate in the Senate, will step up and do the right thing so that we aren’t paying for these innocent unborn children who have disabilities to be killed with our tax dollars.”… (Excerpt from The Virginia Star)