The executive director of West
Virginia Free is among those working to block a bill that would ban abortions
in West Virginia
“Women want to have healthy
pregnancies. They want to have healthy children. The men in their
lives want them to have healthy pregnancies and healthy children,
but pregnancies sometimes go wrong,” said Margaret Chapman Pomponio.
What happens next in those cases,
she said, should be between pregnant women and their doctors.
“Legislators don’t understand what
the circumstances are that a woman is facing and so — to take that decision
making out of the doctor’s hands, out of the woman’s hands and place it here at
the State Capitol — is just misplaced and little misguided,” said Chapman
Pomponio.
The bill, HB 4588, is pending in
the House Judiciary Committee with just more than two weeks left in the 2014
Regular Legislative Session. Reports indicate that bill will be
addressed, but it is on a deadline. Next Wednesday is the last day bills
can come out of the chamber where they were introduced.
The bill is similar to HB
2364. An attempt to bring that legislation directly to the House floor
failed last week with a 48-48 vote and reportedly lead to a contentious,
hours-long private Democratic caucus meeting.
Group members were thanking those
in the House of Delegates for passage of the West Virginia Pregnant Workers’
Fairness Act which is now pending in the Senate Labor Committee.
If the Senate approves, that bill,
HB 4284, would mandate that employers make reasonable accommodations for
pregnant women in their workplaces.
