The Daily Signal - Twenty-Five Percent of Children Were Aborted in Virginia in 2025 | Joe Thomas & Victoria Cobb

Episode Date: April 20, 2026

We spent a year as the Commonwealth of Virginia birthing 94,000 babies and taking the lives of 38,000. That means we are aborting about a quarter of our next generation. We've gotten to the point where there's a volume of Virginians that have decided they don't care about the unborn. They’re fine with late term abortions, argues Victoria Cobb, president of the Family Foundation of Virginia on today’s Daily Signal podcast with host Joe Thomas.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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CBC News. Welcome to the Daily Signal podcast covering Virginia here. My name is Joe Thomas. And joining us from the Family Foundation is their director. She is the great Victoria Cobb. Victoria, thank you for taking time out with us today. How are you doing? I'm doing well.

Thanks so much for having me. Not at all. I know it's a busy time as springtime is getting here and Holy Week. And we appreciate you taking the little time out for this. But one year ago, we were at the Virginia. March for Life. This month's Virginia, this year's Virginia March for Life is coming up April 22nd. I want you to take a second and reflect back on this past year and the things that we've seen done, especially as it comes to our challenges protecting the unborn, because this has been a remarkable,

and I'm trying to be kind here, a year in protecting unborn children in Virginia. Well, yeah, I mean, I think I have to start with the overarching. And before we get to the policy and the things that are happening, start with, well, we spent a year as the Commonwealth of Virginia birthing, 94,000 babies and taking the life of 38,000. And when you add that up, that means we basically are aborting about a fourth of our next generation. So that's one thing that happened over the last year. Sorry to start on such a sobering note. But that all is made possible by bad public policy and by liberal legislators that don't value human life. And so we've had a tough year.

We had a very, very difficult election where we put pro-abortion forces in every lever of control of our government. And, you know, that plays out in really painful ways. We are, you know, waiting for Governor Spamberger to sign a bill that is called the Face Act at the state level. and it's trying to make it very difficult for anybody to counsel a woman as she's walking in or out of the decision-making process of going into an abortion center. And so, you know, we continue to make our laws worse than they already are. And we're facing a constitutional amendment that our people will vote on in November that will make things even worse than they are today. It's an unbelievable time to go from Todd Gilbert and Rob Bell grilling Kathy Tran in a viral video. that really almost invented the idea of viral videos.

The world almost, we were a punchline, almost to the point of Jay Leno making fun of Kathy Tran as she fumbled and mumbled her way through that Planned Parenthood written bill. And how did we go from that being a national punchline to it nearly being and on the verge of being a constitutional amendment? Yeah. It is a stunner. I mean, we had that bill and sort of that moment. And then if you remember, Governor Northam made that terrible comment about a baby being made comfortable and then a decision being made after the child was born. And yeah, we were the laughing stock of the nation because people couldn't believe that such outrageous things were being discussed in Virginia. And unfortunately, we've moved from there to, I mean, obviously we had, you know, the fall of row and a pendulum swung. And that's, you know, we expect. that, but it's troubling because I think we've gotten to the point where there's a volume of Virginians. It's not as high as you might think, but there is a volume of Virginians that have decided they don't care. That somehow, even when we're talking late-term

abortion, even when we're talking ridiculous statements about a baby being born and then making decisions, there's just at least some Virginians that have said, that is worth it for my right to be convenienced to have the option of having an abortion. And that's not a majority of Virginians, but it's enough that we're in a really tragic. And it's just the value of human life. If a society doesn't value life, it just, I mean, just snowballs from there. You know, we were able to at least stop a euthanasia type bill from passing our legislature. So, you know, when we think about we're very fortunate that at least we're still drawing a line a little bit at the end of life. Well, you know, it's with that, and I want to pick up on that youth in Asia bill because I think

there is a case that I've made, and I say it somewhat hearkening back to my days as a shock jock on radio. When I point out that if we wanted politicians to defend the unborn child, we should give it a vote. Because I really think that, and you agree with me. Sometimes people are, oh, that may be a little too far, Joe. But I think if you gave that baby, that unborn, you know, but yet a living being a vote, then politicians would be much more apt to try to protect it. As you saw with the Euthanasia bill, we can get people to protect somebody who may be at the end of their life, but they can still vote. Yeah. I mean, it's a crazy thing. And we're extremely schizophrenic about how we view human life, you know, because we do at least if a child is wanted in the womb and

someone, for example, you know, shoots a pregnant mother and that we lose that child, there's, you know, we've been able to put into our law some value there, but it's only if this child is wanted, you know, when the child is unwanted and the mother makes the decision to do the same thing, you know, we don't value that and we're not helping these, these women the way we should be. And so we're in a very difficult situation. And unfortunately, in addition to that, our state has been kind of turned into becoming the flagship for abortion. This is the place where they are often recommended to go when they're in states, like our neighboring state of Tennessee that has a basically complete ban on abortion.

And those women are crossing state lines. The clinic literally picked up and crossed from Bristol, Tennessee to Bristol, Virginia. And now the women cross over just the same. And so we're also taking the lives of many out-of-state children as well because our policy is so permissive in the case of abortion. If this constitutional amendment passes, I mean, we could be seeing international abortion tourism, couldn't we, Victoria?

Well, the reality is our law is already worse than most of the country, and it will just make it basically the worst it could possibly be. So currently, and a lot of Virginians don't know what our law is, and so that's why I restate it sometimes because there's been so much debate, if it's not personal to you, you kind of get lost in, well, what do we allow now?

So Virginia right now allows abortion completely elective up until the third trimester. So for any reason and basically anywhere up until the third trimester. And then when you get to the third trimester, what happens is we say you have to have three doctors confirm that the health of the woman would be irreparably harmed if they don't have an abortion. Now, many doctors will actually say that that is almost never the case, that it's almost always better to birth a child than it is to actually abort a child in those later states. But nevertheless, that's what our law allows now. When we get to this amendment, if our people aren't going to block this amendment, we're going to end up with essentially elective abortion through the moments of birth because we will say the new language around third trimester will be that you can have an abortion for

your mental or physical health, not irreparable and not just physical, emotional. Well, we know the world of emotional health is a wide range of things. And so the only person that would have to prove it, no longer three doctors can confirming anything. It's the abortionist. Well, I mean, the guy who profits from the procedure gets to decide if it's to your benefit to get the procedure. So that's the reality that we're moving into and it will overturn parental consent for abortion. So these young girls who right now at least get the help of a parent won't have that when we move forward, you know, and have this amendment in front of us if we if we don't block that. And furthermore,

no safety standards and all of the other things that go with this amendment. But you can't, you can't expect, but the volume of abortion will simply go even higher. And yes, when most of the world does not allow third term abortion, we're going to become a place where you go from all sorts of, I mean, most of Europe, you know, people think of Europe as being more permissive than America, but it's not. Not in this case. Virginia will be the place to go to handle a late-term abortion. What role perhaps? You talk about the parental consent, the parental notification. We've seen some Supreme Court rulings just this week even on the ability to tell and the responsibility to tell and that you can't infringe on that because that's free speech. Can since some of that be applied here, do you think, Victoria? I mean, that's a great question. I mean, the bottom line is we're going to show. struggle around all the legal decisions once this amendment comes into place because the language

in everything about our amendment is vague, just very poorly worded. And so we're going to struggle these legal issues. I just, we have seen courts interpret things in bizarre ways, in particular, around the abortion issue. Abortion is treated so differently than any other medical procedure. And yeah, I would argue the counseling issue, you know, when you You're talking about sharing with a woman as she's considering an abortion and walking in. That's a speech issue. And the idea that they can restrict that is alarming. Victoria Cobb is visiting with us from the Family Foundation here in Virginia.

The March for Life is coming up on April 22nd. Where can people find out more about that? Should they just go to marchforlife.org? Yeah, you can do that and click on our state or you can go to family foundation. And we've got a big banner at the top that will get you there. And, you know, folks need to just get their details in line, you know, be blocking that date right now to be coming. There are buses coming from around the state. So you might be wanting to sign up for a bus. There's training afterwards. That's something that's different this year because we have an amendment in front of us.

We want to have folks get prepared to be effective in helping tell their friends and neighbors. And so they'll be the normal rally. Then there'll be the march around the Capitol. And then there will be a training. We'll provide some box lunches. So we need to know that you're coming. but I think that's going to be a real value add to the March. Well, and the date seems to be appropriate since it's the day after we finish voting on this redistricting amendment. But I was a little curious. I thought they might have tried to fold both amendments into one another for an early vote. But talk about the importance of what we see in response to the redistricting amendment versus what can then be returned.

in November regarding opposition to the constitutional amendment, elevating abortion, like you said, to almost, you know, an at-will procedure. Yeah, I mean, this redistricting fight has, I think, illuminated a lot of voters about how these things actually happen. You know, it was jammed in front of the voters in a rushed fashion. Most would argue it's actually been illegal and we're, you know, disappointed. The courts haven't stepped in already. But, you know, they, they line this up, a day before redistricting, and what you're seeing, if you're any Virginian turning on your television, your streaming device, your telephone, the confusion that is being brought around this amendment intentionally, right? So this is the, you know, they're trying to describe a rigged

map as this is the fair way to do things. This is temporary. All these words that are being used and that message is so loud because they have 30, I think it's 38 million now we're up to on their side pouring into these ads. And on our side, last I saw it was about seven, we might have gotten a recent infusion of a little bit more funds. But when you got 38 to 7 or whatever the numbers, I mean, you know, even if it's a little better than that, it's not much better than that. The confusion and deceit that goes out on the airways that is hard to correct because the money is there, that's what we're going to see in November. I mean, that's, people need to be aware that what you're seeing in this fight is going to be at least as dramatically, uh, illustrated.

when we get to ballot initiatives that come in the fall. Well, and we've seen that already in the abortion amendment, Victoria, where they talk about how this almost majority, if not unanimity of Virginians agree with the abortion amendment when that's not true at all. Well, no, and they're going to describe the abortion amendment as, we're just codifying row. We're just ensuring your right to have an abortion.

No, it is much more than that. And even, and this is what a lot of people kind of wonder, about is you go in when you actually go to vote, and this will be true on redistricting, it'll be true on abortion, it'll be true on a marriage amendment that's also on the fall. You go in to vote and you don't usually see the whole language of the amendment. You see a summary. And the summaries are very disingenuous as well. And those summaries are written by the same legislature that brought you the amendment

is the same legislature telling you supposedly a neutral definition of what it is. So if you actually walk into the ballot box on April 21st and see redistricting, you're going to see how it's the fair thing to do in the summary. And that is just absolutely wrong. And you're going to see that with abortion. The summary does not fully disclose. In fact, it almost looks, if you read the abortion amendment summary, a voter might almost believe we're going to be more restrictive in the third trimester rather than less. It's brilliant, darkly brilliant, but you have to recognize it, even in the way they pitch polling numbers and things. things like that, they're misrepresentative, they're taking polling numbers out of context,

they're taking polls that weren't about the amendment and applying them to the amendment. Because when Virginiancy was in the amendment, it's almost two to one. They're against it. Yeah. And with redistricting is such a same example where when there was a poll that basically said, you know, what do you think about, you know, the situation, the amendment? And it was really, what do you think about the concept of, you know, redrawing the lines, pausing the commission, having a 10-1 map. But then, and people rejected that. They said, that's a bad idea.

No, we don't agree in majority. But then when it was the actual ballot language, it's so confusing that that vote changed. And so it's not people in concept are with us on redistricting, but on the language, the way it's worded, it's confusing people. And they're going the wrong way. And I worry about that with the abortion amendment as well. So it's in polling, and it's certainly going to be, there's going to be, there's going to be discrepancy as long as we can't be get get the clear message out about what the amendment does. Yeah. And there's so much I pointed out on a previous episode of this, Victoria, that there is an

actual breed of catfish called the Blue Virginia Catfish and it lives, wait for it, in the James River near Richmond. So I think we need to rebrand one of our political parties with a blue catfish. Yeah. But we appreciate your time. Victoria Cobbitt's Family Foundation dot org and support them, support them. They're legal battles that they fight for us all the time in the founding freedoms legal center as well are profound. Thank you. You're always a blessing to have a conversation with.

And we look forward to seeing you. Oh, by the way, Kevin Harris and Marshall Patty from city elders say hello. I love those guys. They're doing the Lord's work out there. Hey, guys, she says she loves you. All right. Thank you, Victoria. God bless you.

We'll talk to you very soon. Thanks for having me.