Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin vetoed a Democrat-backed bill on Tuesday that advocates say would have been used to target peaceful pro-life protesters and sidewalk counselors outside of abortion facilities.
The bill would have sharply restricted the activities of pro-life advocates around abortion facilities, including imposing penalties for “impeding” access to an abortion provider. In his veto message, the Republican governor said that the legislation was an unconstitutional attack on free speech.
“This legislation is an unconstitutional time, place, and manner restriction on the God-given, constitutionally protected right to the freedom of speech,” Youngkin wrote. “It creates new criminal penalties for what one might say or where they stand when they say it. If this bill were to become law, a citizen of the Commonwealth, the crucible of our representative democracy,…
