House Speaker Roger Hanshaw has announced that he’ll call the House of Delegates back in this month to carry on with a special session to consider abortion policy in West Virginia.
But a couple of hours after that announcement, Senate President Craig Blair said he’d learned of it only by press release and “to say I was shocked is an understatement.”
Hanshaw announced the session would begin again Monday, Sept. 12, alongside the regularly scheduled interim committee meetings. A previous attempt at a special session that included a comprehensive abortion bill broke off without conclusion.
Blair’s statement alluded to recent discussions about how to change the bill to reach consensus in both chambers, but he indicated no agreement has been reached.
“Communication is vital to ensuring government works in an efficient and productive manner,” stated Blair, R-Berkeley.
“Make no mistake, I am in complete support of passing legislation to save as many unborn babies as possible. However, I will not cause further chaos and disruption to the process, or burden our taxpayers with unnecessary expenses, by calling Senators back into session without a concrete plan for producing a bill that has the votes to pass both chambers.”
Disagreements in late July over criminal penalties for medical providers and exceptions in cases of rape or incest led both chambers to adjourn until some other time.
The final evening ended with the House majority disagreeing with changes the Senate had made and calling for a conference committee of five members from each chamber to work out differences. Then they went home.
Conference Committee members must be announced during a session of the House of Delegates. Their meeting times, locations and meetings themselves are public information as those details are available.
The House request for a conference committee was communicated to the Senate, but has not yet been received by the Senate, which adjourned July 29 to the call of the President.
West Virginia had a criminal abortion law dating back to the 1800s that had been unenforced following Roe vs. Wade — along with newer abortion regulations that had assumed the procedure was restricted but legal.
The question of whether those abortion laws conflict so much that they can’t be reconciled is headed to the state Supreme Court, which could hear oral arguments early next year.
Meanwhile, West Virginia lawmakers took up the debate after the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the landmark Roe vs. Wade federal guarantee of abortion and sent policy decisions back to states.
The bill under consideration by lawmakers would not allow for abortion at any time during pregnancy, except for in some limited circumstances. In recent years, West Virginia law had allowed abortion up to 20 weeks of gestation.
The bill allows exceptions for a nonmedically viable fetus, an ectopic pregnancy, which is when a fertilized egg implants and grows outside the main cavity of the uterus, or a medical emergency, not including psychological or mental health situations.
The bill specifies that several things are not considered abortion: a miscarriage, stillbirth, use of established cell lines or human fetal tissue research, in vitro fertilization or contraceptives.
But the questions of criminal penalties and exceptions for cases of rape or incest divided members of the legislative majority.
On a heated final night of the earlier session, some Republican lawmakers suggested the removal of criminal penalties weakened the bill. Republicans who took that position said they already had reluctantly accepted some exceptions for rape and incest because that would increase the chances of passage overall.
Senator Robert Karnes, R-Randolph, that evening said delegates might come back with something more restrictive “but if they do, it won’t pass this body.”
Other members of the Republican majority who indicated dissatisfaction over the changes also said they hoped delegates would make it more restrictive.
“If I decide to vote for this legislation it is with the hope that the other side (delegates) will be able to improve upon it,” said Senator Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson, who wound up voting against it.
In the weeks since that happened, Rucker announced a challenge for presidency of the Senate. And in the House, Delegate Brandon Steele announced a challenge to Hanshaw, the current speaker.