The picture above shows how Virginia State Police greeted protesters for reproductive equality this weekend. On Saturday, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports, 31 people were arrested for marching to the Capitol and sitting down on the steps, where they were faced officers in riot gear.
Blue Virginia has video, updates, etc., and posts this statement from Democratic Delegate Scott Surovell:
Women fought for decades to achieve equality with men and the right to control their personal medical decisions. My mother was legally prohibited from attending most Virginia universities or professional schools, was unable to buy a car without the signature of a man, or choose when she wanted to have a child when she reached adulthood in Virginia in 1962. Thanks to the victories won by women over the last forty years, my three daughters will have choices and opportunities in life that my mother, my grandmothers, and their predecessors could have never dreamed of founded. These opportunities are founded upon economic equality and the right to decide when to give birth to a child.
Delegate Surovell’s full statement is after the jump.
Virginia Democratic Delegate Scott Surovell writes:
Women fought for decades to achieve equality with men and the right to control their personal medical decisions. My mother was legally prohibited from attending most Virginia universities or professional schools, was unable to buy a car without the signature of a man, or choose when she wanted to have a child when she reached adulthood in Virginia in 1962. Thanks to the victories won by women over the last forty years, my three daughters will have choices and opportunities in life that my mother, my grandmothers, and their predecessors could have never dreamed of founded. These opportunities are founded upon economic equality and the right to decide when to give birth to a child. Forcing women who have been diagnosed as carrying an anecephelatic or non-viable fetus to undergo a second ultrasound and place a picture of it in her medical records for seven years or longer is state sponsored torture. These arrests vividly evidence the depth of the anger, betrayal, and dismay that Virginians feel by the passage of House Bill 462 by both chambers. Earlier this session, the Republican majority in the House of Delegates refused to schedule the Equal Rights Amendment for a hearing even after it has been passed by the Virginia Senate. The Commonwealth’s decision to send in police with riot gear and arrest unarmed peaceful protestors demonstrate the depth of paranoia that Virginia Republicans continue to feel about women given equal rights to men in the law. The arrest of women and men exercising their Constitutional rights on the steps of the Capitol of the state that is the home for the author of the First Amendment is especially ironic. The protests and arrests are also evidence that there will be electoral consequences in Virginia in 2012 and 2013 for anyone who voted in favor of ultrasound or anti-contraception legislation this session.
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