Virginia’s pro-life voters have a golden opportunity to affect the course of Virginia history in the upcoming November 6, 2001 elections, according to Virginia Society for Human Life Political Action Committee Chairman Cathy Driscoll. Three solidly pro-life Republican leaders, Mark Earley, Jay Katzen, and Jerry Kilgore, are pitted against three pro-abortion Democratic candidates for the statewide offices of Governor, Lt. Governor and Attorney General. “We have a clear choice,” said the PAC Chairman.

Mark Earley served as Virginia’s Attorney General from 1997 until he won the Republican nomination to run for Governor at a statewide convention held in Richmond on June 2, 2001. Before being elected to the office of Attorney General, Mr. Earley served in the state Senate beginning in 1988. He was the chief sponsor of the parental notification bill, which he successfully guided to passage in spite of strong pro-abortion efforts to defeat it. He was chief patron of a bill to outlaw partial-birth abortion, a bill to prevent assisted suicide, and a bill that would make feticide a crime. Attorney General Earley defended Virginia’s parental notification law all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court and he ruled that the state’s law requiring parental notification prior to performing an abortion on a minor also applied to RU 486 (chemical abortion). Mr. Earley defended Virginia’s partial-birth abortion ban when it was challenged before a federal district court. The law was struck down and he immediately appealed to the Fourth Circuit. As a result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2000 ruling that Nebraska’s partial-birth abortion ban was unconstitutional, Virginia’s ban was also invalidated. “Mark Earley is a true champion of the right to life, a man of character and conviction,” said Mrs. Driscoll.

Del. Jay Katzen consistently voted pro-life from 1995 to 2001. Katzen has earned VSHL PAC’s endorsement for the office of Lt. Governor. Jerry Kilgore, pro-life candidate for the office of Attorney General, is a former State and Federal prosecutor who served in former Gov. George Allen’s Cabinet as Secretary of Public Safety.

“Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Mark Warner continues to cling to the losing radical pro-abortion position he took in his 1996 race against Senator John Warner,” said the PAC Chairman. According to his official campaign web site, he “supports the Roe v. Wade decision” which legalized abortion for all nine months of pregnancy, “and he’ll fight further efforts to chip away at that right.” He even “opposed the 24-hour waiting period” signed into law by Gov. Gilmore earlier this year. Tim Kaine, Richmond Mayor and candidate for Lt. Governor, expressed his solidarity with his fellow pro-abortion candidates following his election in a Democrat Primary. As with the other statewide Democratic candidates, he has not returned VSHL’s questionnaire. According to a Virginian-Pilot article, he opposes the 24-hour waiting period and supports a partial-birth abortion ban only with exceptions for the life and health of the mother, which would in effect render the ban meaningless. Democratic Attorney General candidate Donald McEachin ran for the House of Delegates in 1995 as a pro lifer, but his concern for the rights of the innocent and defenseless was merely temporary. He flip-flopped and in 2001 voted against the Women’s Right to Know Bill (Informed Consent) and the Feticide Bill, which makes it a crime to kill an unborn child in an act of violence against a pregnant woman. “Obviously Mr. McEachin is not a good candidate for the job of defending the pro-life laws of Virginia”, Mrs. Driscoll noted.

Mrs. Driscoll advised, “The race will be uphill and the road to victory paved with a lot of hard work. The time to start is now. Make sure you and your family, friends and neighbors are registered to vote. The 2000 presidential election proved that every vote counts. Don’t delay. And vote for Life.”

VSHL PAC’s endorsements are based upon several criteria including candidates’ responses to the VSHL Candidate Survey, voting records, candidate statements, and candidates’ leadership roles in promoting the goals of the Pro-Life Movement.