Youngkin, Trump trying to force MAGA agenda on contraceptives, abortion on Virginia

Republicans in the Virginia General Assembly are pushing back against legislation establishing a right for women to obtain and use contraceptives.

This, as disgraced ex-president Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee, is making it clear that he supports a national abortion ban.

If you were somehow still wondering where that side of the political divide stands on women’s health, there you go.

“This new report confirms what we have known all along: overturning Roe wasn’t enough for Trump – he and MAGA Republicans won’t stop until they ban abortion nationwide and rip away Virginian’s freedoms,” said Susan Swecker, the chair of the Democratic Party of Virginia.

Trump is backing a 16-week abortion ban, the thinking on that being to try to appease social conservatives, supposedly, as if those folks haven’t already long since compromised any moral authority on anything by casting their lots with the guy who put the Sodom in Sodom and Gomorrah.

Virginia voters, you may remember, just a few months ago put an early end to the political career of Gov. Glenn Youngkin, whose aims toward getting Republican majorities in the House of Delegates and State Senate were dashed by him signaling his intent to sign into law a 15-week abortion ban.

Youngkin was going to use the GOP takeover of the General Assembly to buttress a late-game candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination.

Now, he’s a lame-duck governor with Democratic majorities who aren’t even going to let him build his proposed $2 billion taxpayer-funded Glenn Dome in Alexandria.

You’d think Republicans would have learned – from the 2022 midterms, from the 2023 off-year elections in Virginia and Kentucky, from the early numbers in 2024 – that the voters aren’t on board with them rolling back the clock 50 years on women’s health.

The right-to-contraceptives measures are on their way to Youngkin’s desk, and the sponsor of the Senate legislation, State Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, D-Chesterfield, laid out what happens next there.

“He’ll need to explain to Virginians why he thinks contraception ought not to be protected,” Hashmi said.

But you can go ahead and expect him to use his veto power, because Youngkin hasn’t yet gotten the message – that his political career is already over.

He’ll veto the contraception bills because he thinks that will somehow help him with social conservatives down the road, as if there is a down the road for him.

In the process, he’ll be signing over Virginia to Democrats in the 2024 cycle.

“Make no mistake: Trump’s cruelty and chaos knows no bounds, and he is hellbent on forcing his extreme, dangerous MAGA agenda on Virginia families,” Swecker said. “The stakes of this election couldn’t be higher – Trump is running to roll back our rights, President Biden and Vice President Harris are running to restore them. Virginians know that their freedoms hang in the balance, and that’s why they’ll reject Trump and MAGA Republicans in November.”