By Charlie Schmidt, Public Policy Associate, & Gail Deady, Secular Society Women's Rights Legal Fellow
A few of the part-time legislators who represent us at the Virginia General Assembly seem to be confused about how government works. They seem to think that the state can tell the federal government what to do. Any high school civics student could teach them a lesson (or two). Follow along.
First, state law cannot conflict with federal law – that’s because of a little provision in the U.S. Constitution called the Supremacy Clause. We all learned in high school that this rule means federal law trumps conflicting state law -- every time and all of the time.
The federal law now in play is Title X of the Social Security Act. Under Title X, the federal government gives states money to offer family planning programs through a variety of clinics, hospitals, and public health facilities. The feds have rules that govern who can participate – Planned Parenthood follows them.
Several lawmakers are attempting to pick and choose who can get Title X funding. They are trying to legislate Planned Parenthood out of the federal program, HB 1090 (Del. Ben Cline, R-Amherst).
Virginia lawmakers, take note: if you pocket federal money, you have to follow federal rules.
Why do so many state lawmakers need a lesson in Civics 101? They seem to be ready to use any tactic, no matter how far-fetched, to punish Planned Parenthood for providing legal abortion services to women. They will take any action (legal or not) that they believe will help drive Planned Parenthood out of business. They want to do this even though that would deny many women with limited resources access to a full range of other essential health care services.
The legislators’ allies in the fight are even willing to commit fraud to damage Planned Parenthood’s reputation and to lure women into unlicensed pseudo-clinics that invade their privacy and subject them to heavy handed anti-abortion counseling.
Planned Parenthood, in contrast, has been absolved of any wrongdoing, repeatedly.
The delegates’ response? They advanced HB 1090.
Could some Virginia 11th grader please read these lawmakers a few chapters from a basic government textbook?
