West Virginia Voters May Have the Chance to Determine the Law for Themselves
A constitutional amendment (SJR 12) saying that there is no constitutional right to an abortion was adopted by the Senate this week.
Senator Charles Trump IV, R – Morgan, said that the joint resolution is in response to a 1993 West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals decision, Women’s Health Center vs Panepinto (191 W. Va. 436). The case decided that state Medicaid funding could be used to fund abortions.
The resolution would reverse that decision and allow the state to take away money from the procedure and allocate it elsewhere.
“This amendment does not restrict or curtail any legal right that exists to have an abortion,” Trump said. “If this amendment is adopted and ratified it will make it so that some of them cannot be paid for by the state, with exceptions.”
Those exceptions are found and protected by WV Code §9-2-11. House Bill 2082 would add a new section of code, §16-2P-1, that would prohibit the spending of state funds on abortion. Democrat members of the Senate said they were worried the amendment would in fact terminate the choice of a woman in the state to pursue the option of the procedure.
“If this bill coming across from the House doesn’t end [state funding of abortions] for low income women it will be ended as soon as possible next year,” said Senator Mike Romano, D – Harrison.
The Senate voted down an amendment to the resolution by Senator Corey Palumbo, D – Kanawha, that would have guaranteed the funding by adding the statement “except in the case of rape, incest, or medical necessity.”
“If [the Senate] wanted to protect that right, we had the chance to do that yesterday,” Romano said. “We very easily could have fixed this amendment to protect the lives of mothers and in cases of rape and incest. To protect their right to do things that no one would ever want to make the decision to do.
Sill, other senators, such as Senator Gregory Boso, R – Nicholas, believe that the resolution should be placed on the ballot for the citizens of W. Va. to have the final decision.
“I think the wording of this particular constitutional amendment, the resolution before us today, ‘Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of an abortion’, is brief, it’s clear, but more importantly it gives the people of WV the opportunity to vote to establish what we the people believe in,” Boso said.
The resolution was adopted 25-9 and was sent to the house for further consideration. If the resolution is adopted by the House, with a two-thirds majority, it would be placed on the W. Va. 2018 General Election Ballot.
