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[ID] => 11119
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[post_date] => 2026-10-07 22:16:20
[post_date_gmt] => 2026-10-07 22:16:20
[post_content] =>
Why you should pay attention to Virginia's Question 1 this election.
This article is a part of Down-Ballot, a weeklong series highlighting state measures worth watching in the 2026 United States election.
Sara Sanatkar learned firsthand how important it is to have the freedom to make decisions over her own body when she faced an unexpected pregnancy at 19 years old.
This was in 2019. Sanatkar was in an unhealthy relationship, and knew she wasn’t ready to be a mother. But, unfamiliar with the laws regarding reproductive care in her home state of Virginia, Sanatkar wasn’t sure if she could have an abortion, so she Googled it and learned about Roe v. Wade. Back then, she felt immense relief. “I can have access to care. I can have access to legal care. I can have access to safe care,” she remembers her 19-year-old self saying.
Sanatkar says she was “geographically lucky” to have gotten pregnant in Virginia. Born and raised in Tehran, Iran, Sanatkar grew up in a country where, even though her family and the general population supported the right to abortion, the government did not. Leaving Tehran at age 15 wasn’t easy; despite some of the drawbacks women face, such as the threat of death penalty for illegal abortions, it was the only home she’d known. The year before she moved, she remembers sitting in the back of a taxi with her mother, whose words altered her perspective of home and family. While holding her hand, Sanatkar’s mother told her, “I'm so happy that you get to live in a country where you get to make decisions about your own body.”
In 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade—the ruling that had provided Sanatkar relief just three years before—ending the federal constitutional right to abortion, once again leaving the authority with individual states. Since then, 20 states have either severely restricted abortions or established total bans, including West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
As the Field & Canvass Manager at REPRO Rising, a grassroots political organization working to guarantee comprehensive reproductive healthcare information and services to all Virginians, Sanatkar now works alongside the Virginians for Reproductive Freedom coalition, which includes ACLU of Virginia, Virginia League for Planned Parenthood, and the National Women's Political Caucus of Virginia, to protect the right to reproductive freedom within their state constitution. Since August 2024, REPRO Rising has been organizing awareness around Virginia Question 1—one of three proposed amendments to the state constitution on the ballot this November.
In her organizing work so far, she has seen an overwhelmingly positive attitude towards the amendment. According to Sanatkar, many people view it as “very reasonable,” which has resulted in “a sense of pride for me as a Virginia voter,” she says.
“Across Virginia, we’ve heard a consistent message from voters,” she adds. “Regardless of their personal beliefs or experiences with reproductive healthcare, Virginians believe these deeply personal decisions should remain between a patient, their family, and their doctor, not politicians.”
For Virginians, the outcome of Question 1 will determine whether the state establishes a fundamental right to reproductive freedom, following a complicated, multi-year process to add the amendment to the state constitution.
The constitutional amendment was first introduced in January 2023. The General Assembly subsequently passed the amendment in January 2025. The state process requires an intervening election, and a House of Delegates election was held in November 2025. Then, the General Assembly passed the amendment for the second time in January 2026.
Now it is up to voters to vote yes or no. A “yes” vote means Virginians will have a constitutional right to make their own decisions on reproductive care, including abortion. (However, not without some potential restrictions: The proposed amendment would still allow the Virginian government to pass laws regulating abortion care in the third trimester though with decreased barriers.) A “no” vote will mean the status quo is maintained, including the same restrictions to abortion care in the third semester that require approval from three physicians. What’s more, abortion rights in the future could eventually be restricted with a change in office.
The issue has been a key part of Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger’s platform since her electoral victory over Glenn Youngkin last November. In June, half a year after taking office, Gov. Spanberger joined the Reproductive Freedom Alliance (RFA), a nonpartisan coalition of governors dedicated to protecting reproductive freedom across the nation.
“Virginia is the only state in the South where a woman has the same freedom to make her own healthcare decisions as she did before the fall of Roe v. Wade. Today, we are taking a step to reaffirm those freedoms,” Gov. Spanberger said in an RFA press release last June.
In effect, a “yes” vote means Virginia law won’t change, says Executive Director of Virginia ACLU Mary Bauer. “Our goal is not to change Virginia law. Our goal is to enshrine reproductive freedom into our constitution because we know that these rights can be taken away with a flick of a politician’s pen,” she says. “We want to make sure that our rights don’t depend on who happens to be in office at any given moment.”
Prior to the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which eliminated the federal constitutional right to abortion, roughly 3% of patients accessing abortion care in Virginia came from out of state. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and more Southern states limited access to abortions, the percentage of out-of-state patients jumped to 30%, according to the Virginia Independent. This means the results of Amendment 1 will affect more than just Virginians. Arguably, the state is the last stronghold for abortion care in the South.
“To see Virginia as a leader in this space is really a beautiful thing,” Bauer says.
If the amendment fails to pass, there is a risk that Virginia will transform into a state banning abortion, says Dr. Kimberly Chernoby, a physician and reproductive rights lawyer. “Virginia is a state that is not very clearly Democratic or Republican,” she says. “Our legislature has gone both ways, and so there is a real risk that in the future, and it could be near future, that we could lose access to reproductive healthcare.”
Amendment 1 also holds implications for practicing physicians. “It means that when my patient is miscarrying and I have to offer them an abortion to treat their miscarriage, that I'm not worried. ‘Am I going to go to jail? Am I going to lose my medical license? Am I going to be fined $10,000?’ The idea that any physician is asked to weigh those things at the bedside is really incredible,” Dr. Chernoby says. “Abortion is routine healthcare, and you cannot affect all other aspects of reproductive healthcare. When you limit abortion care, you are by definition going to limit all other aspects of reproductive healthcare, and you can't have one without the other.”
It’s exactly this full span of reproductive healthcare that Sanatkar is advocating for, and that she’s encountered broad support for through her organizing. “It's a very simple question: Do you want to have access to bodily autonomy, and do you want to be able to make decisions independently with your doctor without being scared that the state is going to punish you or your provider? And I think [the] majority of Virginians are going to say ‘yes’ to that,” she says.
[post_title] => When the Future of Bodily Autonomy Is in Question
[post_excerpt] => Why you should pay attention to Virginia's Question 1 this election.
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