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HEADLINE: Bid to Ease Access To Contraceptives Ends in Va. House; 'Morning After' Bill Killed in Committee

BYLINE: Lisa Rein, Washington Post Staff Writer

DATELINE: RICHMOND, Feb. 5

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-- Legislation that would have made it easier to obtain emergency contraceptives in Virginia was killed today by a House of Delegates committee following a strong lobbying effort by abortion opponents.

While a similar bill passed in the state Senate, the vote by the House panel sealed the proposal's fate for the year, legislators said. The Senate's bill would have to clear the same committee before it could pass the General Assembly.

After the measure failed by one vote last year, family planning advocates had hoped that it would pass in the 2002 session. The proposal is designed to increase access to what are often referred to as "morning after" drugs by allowing women to receive emergency contraceptives from a pharmacist without a doctor's prescription. "The important thing is, we have kept the issue alive before the women of Virginia," said Del. Viola O. Baskerville, the Richmond Democrat sponsoring the House bill. This year, she found a moderate Republican, Warren E. Barry (Fairfax), to co-sponsor the measure in the Senate, where it passed today by a 25 to 13 vote.

"I hoped that being a male and being a Republican, I would be able to convince them to vote for it," Barry said of House lawmakers.

Abortion opponents said the bill's failure gave them hope for further victories beyond the 24-hour waiting period that the assembly passed last year and the requirement for parental notification that it passed five years ago.

Bills that would require a parent's consent for abortions for teenagers, ban late-term abortions and allow doctors, nurses and pharmacists to refuse to prescribe emergency contraceptives and abortion-inducing pills are likely to pass the House this month. Their fate in the less conservative Senate is uncertain.

Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) said during his campaign that he would sign a ban on the procedure that opponents call a "partial-birth abortion" -- as long as it was constitutional -- but that he opposes further restrictions.

Last year, Baskerville caught abortion opponents by surprise when she won over many House lawmakers who typically oppose abortion rights.

Supporters offered the emergency contraception bill as a way to reduce unwanted pregnancies, and many Republicans and conservative Democrats who voted to require women seeking an abortion to wait 24 hours also approved the measure.

The House and Senate passed the bill but could not agree on a last-minute proposal in the House to require teenagers to get parental consent before taking the pills.

Last year's alliance between social conservatives and abortion rights supporters evaporated in a House now dominated by 64 Republicans, 19 of them elected in November. The same House committee that approved the measure last year voted 13 to 8 today to kill it. The 13 opponents were Republicans, four of them new delegates.

"The perspective of the committee has changed," said Del. Jeannemarie Devolites (R-Fairfax), a member of the Health, Welfare and Institutions Committee who opposed the bill.

Devolites, who opposes abortion, said the issue was not whether emergency contraception induces abortions but whether it is safe for teenagers to take without a doctor's supervision.

"It's a shame that it came down to being a pro-life or pro-choice issue," Devolites said.

Abortion opponents began an assault on the bill immediately after last year's session adjourned.

"The issue had not been fully researched by those of us in opposition," said Victoria Cobb, director of legislative affairs for the Richmond-based Family Foundation, an antiabortion group. "We see [emergency contraception] as an abortive agent, and the public was, for the most part, unware of that."

Supporters of the legislation said they were resigned to the bill failing this year.

"We knew it was a dream this year," said Ben Greenberg, lobbyist for Planned Parenthood of Virginia. "Unfortunately, we have too many legislators who are unwilling to see this bill for what it is, something to prevent unwanted pregnancies."

LOAD-DATE: February 06, 2002