The Family Foundation works from the belief that human life from fertilization to natural death is sacred, and the right to life is foundational to all other rights. For years, The Family Foundation has sought to enhance the value of human life through increased restrictions on elective abortion and greater information and support for mothers who find themselves wrestling with a tremendously difficult decision. While saving human life has been the chief objective, measures that not only save unborn life but also provide to these children greater legal status as individuals should be given priority. Protecting the rights of faith-based organization’s that provide financial support to women facing crisis pregnancies and do not have the means to support them has been another priority.
What we are doing:
- Creating a Wrongful Death Statute for the Unborn | Virginia has a fetal homicide law. However, the same unborn life, taken without “intention” or “premeditation” elicits no penalty. Improving our civil law to recognize fetal “manslaughter” is essential. An unborn life is not only of value when it is wanted by the mother or when it is intentionally taken by another. This is most often seen in cases where a drunk driver’s negligence kills a child in the womb. Additionally, by adding the unborn to wrongful death laws, surviving relatives have the ability to sue for damages in the wake of a tragedy due to negligence on the part of individuals or corporations.
- Criminalizing Coerced Abortion | Some estimate that between 30 and 60 percent of women who undergo an abortion feel coerced in some way. Oftentimes that coercion is violent in nature. Coercing a woman into an abortion through force, threat or intimidation should be criminalized.
- Improving Informed Consent | Virginia’s popular informed consent law is a decade old. Emerging technologies like 4-D ultrasounds and new medical information regarding fetal development and fetal pain need to be included in our law so that women are provided the most updated information possible.
- Fighting Embryonic Stem Cell Research | The taxpayers of Virginia should not be asked to subsidize or support unethical and failed research that requires the destruction of human embryos. If the Commonwealth is going to invest, it should do so in businesses that use adult stem cells where research has produced dozens of treatments and cures.
- Protecting End of Life Decisions | Public policy should protect human life at its most vulnerable point, including those who are nearing the end of life.
