A BILL to amend and reenact § 18.2-76 of the Code of Virginia, relating to provision of abortion; informed written consent; newborn safety devices.
HB542 amends Virginia’s informed-consent abortion statute, § 18.2-76, to require that before an abortion or other pregnancy termination is performed, the physician—or, in certain cases under § 18.2-72, an authorized advanced practice registered nurse—must provide written information about newborn safe haven provisions as part of the informed written consent process. The bill also adds a requirement that the Virginia Department of Health publish safe-haven information by October 1, 2026, in English and in each language that is the primary language of 2% or more of the Commonwealth’s population.
The measure is framed as an update to the information given to pregnant patients and, where applicable, to a parent, guardian, committee, or other person standing in loco parentis when the patient is adjudicated incapacitated or believed to be incapacitated. Its practical effect would be to expand the statutory counseling/disclosure obligations tied to abortion care and to create a public-facing multilingual information requirement for the Department of Health.
If enacted, HB542 would modify § 18.2-76 of the Code of Virginia by adding newborn safe haven information to the mandatory written disclosures that must precede an abortion or pregnancy termination. It would also impose a new administrative duty on the Department of Health to publish safe-haven materials in English and in other major languages meeting the bill’s population threshold. The bill would affect physicians, certain advanced practice registered nurses, pregnant patients, and, in incapacity cases, parents or guardians involved in consent.
Based on the available context, the bill appears to have been treated as a committee-level proposal rather than one that advanced through recorded votes or floor debate. The absence of votes or transcripts suggests limited public deliberation in the provided record. The bill was left in the House Committee on Health and Human Services, indicating it did not move forward in the legislative process at this stage.
The main point of potential contention is the expansion of abortion-related informed-consent requirements, which supporters may view as ensuring patients receive information about newborn safe haven options, while opponents may see as an additional regulatory burden or as part of broader abortion restrictions. Another possible issue is the multilingual publication mandate for the Department of Health, including the threshold for which languages must be covered. Because no committee transcript or vote record is provided, the specific arguments for or against the bill are not documented in the supplied materials.