Democrats Attack GOP on 1-Year Anniversary of Ultrasound Bill

Monday marks the one-year anniversary of the implementation of Virginia’s controversial bill requiring a woman to undergo an ultrasound before having an abortion, and Democrats are using the date to attack the Republican ticket in the November election on their “radical” and “anti-women” agenda.

State Sen. Ralph Northam (D-Norfolk), the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, said the procedure had no medical importance – it is only political, he said.

“Politicians should not be making personal medical decisions that are best made between a woman and her doctor,” Northam said in a statement Monday. “This ultrasound law … ignores science to legislate what a woman should do with her body.”

Gubernatorial candidates Ken Cuccinelli (R) and Terry McAuliffe (D) have already traded jabs on transportation and other issues, but Northam and State Sen. Mark Herring (D-Loudoun) are getting in the ring as well.

Herring’s camp has criticized his opponent, Sen. Mark Obenshain for supporting the bill’s passage and ultimately voting to push it through.

“When it comes to women’s health, his record of being way outside the mainstream speaks for itself,” said Kevin O’Holleran, Herring’s campaign manager, in a statement.

Sen. Janet Howell called the bill “government intrusion at its worst.”

“The ultrasound bill imposed an unnecessary and costly procedure on women, regardless of the opinion of their doctors,” she said in an email to Patch. “This year bills imposing even more restrictions on women's health and birth control were introduced.  Unless we have a new governor who would veto them, women's access to healthcare is in jeopardy in Virginia.”

Herring has attacked Obenshain elsewhere in the abortion debate as well.

The Washington Post reports that Herring has called Obenshain on a 2009 proposal that would require women to report miscarriages to the police.

Obenshain told the Post that Herring was making too much of the legislation, adding that he pulled the it from consideration and that it was nowhere near becoming law.

Abortion is already a hot-button issue in the 2013 election and Democrats have been seizing opportunities to hit the GOP ticket.

Republican candidate for lieutenant governor E.W. Jackson has already come under fire for calling Planned Parenthood “more lethal” to African-Americans than the Ku Klux Klan.