HB78 and HB1359: Please vote YES. We are a free state, not a police state. Law enforcement has no need for private menstrual health data; it has no bearing or use in criminal investigations. Please prevent it from being used to control people and make them afraid. HB1539 and HB1493: Please vote YES. Doctors should be free to practice safe, proven medical care that is legal in Virginia without fear of extradition. We don't have to be complicit in other states' cruelty and ignorance, nor turn our back on sound and established science. HB1184 and HB1364: Please vote NO. However good the intentions behind them, abortion bans -- as we've seen in a tide of horror stories from across the country -- do more harm than good. They prevent people who very much want to keep their children from receiving life-saving medical care. Passing these laws will hurt and kill people -- real, actual, living, breathing, taxpaying people, as opposed to the hypothetical unborn. These decisions are best left between pregnant people and their doctors.

HB78 AND HB 1359 Courts of Justice Sub-Committe Criminal-1/24/24. the Alliance for a Progressive Virginia support these similar bills. APV supports a woman's right to control her reproductive health and this includes the right to keep her menstrual history private. In the wake of the Dobbs ruling, woman across the country and here in Virginia are suddenly at danger of having her personal and private health information used against her by a newly empowered, anti-choice police apparatus.

As a citizen concerned about privacy and safety, I would recommend that the text be further amended to specifically exclude health data by name, including body temperature, mucosal viscosity, dates of menstruation, hormone levels and other similar health data, to ensure that these cannot be used to determine menstrual status by proxy.

HB78 AND HB 1359 Courts of Justice Sub-Committe Criminal-1/24/24 The League of Women Voters of Virginia support these similar bills. A person’s menstrual cycle should never be made public. If a woman is having a health problem, then she and her health care professional should discuss this in private. This is an egregious violation of privacy and government intervention into our private lives. Protecting the privacy of this information is urgently needed–the information stored by digital health apps can be used in court as documentation that a birthing person has terminated a pregnancy. I urge you to support these bills.

YES keep menstrual health data out of search and seizure protect reproductive justice

YES protect private menstrual health data