Youngkin was asked last week if he supports giving taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood, but a flurry of interruptions rendered his ultimate answer unclear.
A spokeswoman for the campaign of Glenn Youngkin, the Republican nominee to be the next governor of Virginia, clarified the candidate’s position on taxpayer funding of abortion in a statement provided to National Review.
Youngkin was previously asked if he would support the provision of taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood — the country’s largest abortion provider — in an interview last week, but a flurry of interruptions helped render his ultimate answer unclear. What Youngkin had said at the time was that he didn’t believe “taxpayer funds should be used to fund abortions” and that it “depends on what the money is used for.”
The statement sheds more light on his position, although where he comes down on Planned Parenthood specifically remains cloudy:
Terry McAuliffe said he’s proud to be endorsed by radical groups that support taxpayer-funded abortions up until the moment of birth. The majority of Virginians do not support McAuliffe’s extreme pro-abortion agenda. Glenn Youngkin supports funding for women’s health centers but does not support tax payer funded abortions. Glenn opposes Governor Northam’s repeal of the law put in place by Governor Bob McDonnell 10 years ago to protect Virginia taxpayers from being forced to support abortions. Glenn is pro life and supports exceptions for rape, incest, and when the life of the mother is in danger.
The law signed by McDonnell, the Republican governor of Virginia from 2010 to 2014, prevented abortions from being paid for by health insurance plans available on the exchanges set up by the Affordable Care Act, unless a mother’s life was in danger. That rule was repealed by Democrats in the Virginia General Assembly and Governor Ralph Northam earlier this year.
State law also presently allows the Virginia Department of Health to use state funds to provide abortions “where pregnancy results from rape or incest,” and “where fetus is believed to have incapacitating physical deformity or mental deficiency; physician’s certificate.”
The Youngkin campaign has not, however, said outright whether it would oppose funding Planned Parenthood, even if the money was prohibited from directly funding abortion. Pro-life activists often argue that any state funding of organizations that provide abortions amounts to state funding of abortion, since money is fungible and the relieving of other financial burdens frees up funds elsewhere.
Terry McAuliffe, Youngkin’s Democratic counterpart, has stated that he would sign a bill making abortions easier to obtain through all nine months of a pregnancy, right up to birth. While McAuliffe had in 2019 said he would not support such a measure, he has since reversed himself, calling such legislation “common sense.”