Virginia is deciding whether to write abortion access into its state constitution, and religious leaders across the theological spectrum are working to defeat the measure. Early voting is already underway ahead of the Nov. 3 deadline, with the abortion question sharing the ballot with a second proposed amendment that would remove a dormant same-sex marriage provision from the commonwealth’s governing document.

What sets this vote apart from an ordinary legislative fight is durability. A constitutional amendment cannot be undone by the next governor, repealed by a future General Assembly, or narrowed by a court interpreting a statute. It becomes part of the state’s charter until Virginians themselves vote to remove it. That permanence has drawn Catholic bishops, pro-life organizations, and more than 150 Protestant pastors into the same fight from very different starting points.

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From Just the News:

Virginia is one of a handful of states that has neither enacted a state law nor had a court ruling determine the status of abortion. The proposed constitutional amendment would guarantee abortion access in the first two trimesters, while explicitly allowing restrictions for the third, provided they make exceptions for situations where the life and health of the mother is at risk.

“Although many matters in political life call for strictly prudential personal judgments over which Catholics may in good faith disagree, certain fundamental matters such as marriage and the protection of human life call for a consistent and universal response from Catholics to protect and preserve objective goods by which God blesses humanity,” the organization’s website states.

“We believe these two amendments must be rejected for the Commonwealth of Virginia because they will harm our state as they are opposed to human flourishing and contrary to the Word of God,” they wrote. The Second Amendment they reference is a repeal of the state’s now-moot constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

The Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade returned abortion policy to the states for the first time in half a century. Since then, 13 states have enacted near-total bans, four have imposed six-week limits, two have adopted 12-week limits, and a number of others have settled on gestational thresholds of their own. Virginia has taken none of those steps, and with no statute or ruling settling the matter, both sides describe the status quo as unstable.

Virginia approves constitutional amendments by simple majority, so the measure needs no supermajority to pass. The state has trended toward Democrats for the past 22 years, and no Republican has carried Virginia at the presidential level since 2004. The GOP’s most recent statewide win came in 2021, when Glenn Youngkin upset Democrat Terry McAuliffe in the governor’s race. Polling on the amendment itself is sparse, and recent November elections in Virginia have generally favored Democrats, a dynamic that would work in the amendment’s favor. The state’s most recent statewide referendum ended with voters approving a redraw of congressional districts, only for the state Supreme Court to later overturn the result.

Opposition has come from institutions that rarely coordinate. Arlington Bishop Michael Burbidge issued a rare direct appeal to parishioners urging a no vote, and the advocacy group CatholicsVoteNo has organized around the same goal. The pastors who signed the open letter represent roughly 90 churches and about 50,000 parishioners, and their letter spoke directly to mothers considering abortion, asking them to choose life.

Scripture does not treat children as burdens to be managed but as a heritage from the Lord (Psalm 127:3), and it describes God’s hand in forming life before birth: “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13). Proverbs 24:11 commands God’s people to rescue those being taken away to death, and Romans 13:1-4 reminds us that governing authorities serve as ministers of God, accountable to Him for how they use their power. A state constitution is the one document that outlasts every official who votes on it, and Virginians are being asked to decide whether abortion access belongs in theirs. That decision will be made by ballots cast in the next several weeks, not by arguments made afterward.

How are you praying about this issue? Share your prayers and scriptures in the comments below.

(Excerpt from Just the News. Photo Credit: demerzel21/Getty Images via Canva Teams).