One state Senate race could decide what happens to reproductive rights in Virginia

Juan Pablo Segura, the Republican nominee for the 31st state Senate District in Virginia, does not mention his position on abortion at all on his campaign website. But if he wins in November’s election, he might well be the deciding vote for a statewide ban on the procedure in the last southern state without one.

Segura is a wealthy software executive, the son of billionaire Enrique Segura, and a major donor to Virginia Republicans. He will face Democratic nominee Russet Perry, a prosecutor and former CIA officer who, according to her campaign website, “believes in protecting a woman’s right to make decisions about her own reproductive care.” The newly redistricted Northern Virginia district includes portions of Loudoun and Fauquier counties.

Every seat in Virginia’s 40-member Senate and 100-member House of Delegates will be decided in this year’s general election, which ends on Nov. 7. Republicans currently hold a narrow majority in the House, and Democrats hold a small majority in the Senate. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s term runs through January 2026.

A recent analysis of 2021 and 2022 election results by the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project estimates that under the commonwealth’s new legislative maps, the lean of Senate districts is 21-19 Democratic and House districts are evenly divided at 50-50. With a 2.5 point pro-Democratic lean, the 31st is the most competitive blue-leaning district.

With anti-abortion rights Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears able to break ties in the Senate, if Republicans hold every GOP-leaning seat and Segura wins, they would likely have a majority and the ability to roll back reproductive rights.

Youngkin and his GOP allies have been pushing for a statewide abortion ban since the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade precedent protecting the right to abortion.

“Any bill that comes to my desk I will sign happily and gleefully in order to protect life,” Youngkin told the anti-abortion rights Family Foundation of Virginia in June 2022.

He and his party have proposed a ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy that would provide for up to 10 years in prison for doctors who do not comply.

“I think we can come together around a 15-week bill and that’s what I have been very clear about,” Youngkin told reporters in May. “I think we should continue to work on that.”

A Segura spokesperson did not immediately respond to an American Independent Foundation inquiry about his position on reproductive rights.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported in July that Segura backed a 15-week ban as a “reasoned proposal.”

In 2014, he posted in a Facebook group for Catholic professionals in the Washington, D.C., area encouraging people to attend an event with Lila Rose, a prominent anti-abortion activist who has also opposed contraception:

After mass, we will be talking about what it means to be pro life in the world today. Our good friend, Lila Rose, a leader in the pro life movement, will be joining in and sharing some thoughts. Also, we’ll be praying the rosary before mass at 2:40 in the chapel and after the discussion, we’ll be hitting up the Tombs for drinks, this time John Gallagher, will be buying….

Segura has donated to the 2012 presidential campaign of former Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, who backed bans on abortion and birth control, and to anti-abortion Virginia Republicans Hung Cao and Kevin Adams.

“MAGA extremist Juan Pablo Segura has given thousands to extremists who want to ban abortion, hosted events with radical activists that want to ban abortion, and supports an abortion ban in Virginia,” Lauren Chou, deputy campaign communications director for EMILY’s List, told the American Independent Foundation. “He must be stopped.”

A Washington Post-Schar School poll published in April found that just 17% of Virginia voters want stricter limits on abortions. Even among Republican voters, only 36% supported new restrictions.

Still, experts say Republican majorities would likely mean a statewide ban. Breanna Diaz, policy and legislative counsel at the ACLU of Virginia, told the American Independent Foundation in April, “If anti-abortion legislators are the majority in both chambers, we should expect to see a 15-week ban or an all-out ban move through the General Assembly,”

Democratic nominee Perry said in a statement provided to the American Independent Foundation on Wednesday:

Make no mistake, access to abortion in Virginia and in the South is on the line in November. A woman’s ability to make her own choices about her body — my ability to make my own choices about my body — could come down to who wins this race. We have seen across the country the heart wrenching consequences of politicians meddling in decisions that should be made between a woman and her doctor. As a state senator I will fight to uphold the law in Virginia that entrusts those decisions to a woman and her doctor.

Youngkin was secretly recorded saying he would not be publicly candid about his anti-abortion views so as not to lose independent voters during his 2021 campaign: “When I’m governor, and I have a majority in the House, we can start going on offense. But as a campaign topic, sadly, that in fact won’t win my independent votes that I have to get.”

“I’m a pro-life governor. That’s what Virginians elected. I believe in exceptions in the case of rape and incest and when the mother’s life is at risk,” he told CNN on Wednesday, adding that a ban on abortion at 15 weeks is “a place that we can come together.”

An August report by the progressive blog Blue Virginia revealed that Segura and Youngkin are not the only Virginia Republicans being opaque about their views about reproductive rights.

Republican House of Delegates nominee John Stirrup, who is also running in a competitive Northern Virginia district, makes no mention of the topic on his issues page. Earlier this month, Planned Parenthood of Virginia released audio obtained by the Washington Post and recorded surreptitiously in May in which Stirrup tells a woman posing as an anti-abortion activist: “I would support a 100% ban. It seems like kind of the acceptable position has been about 15 weeks, but that really doesn’t save that many lives. It’s a start.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.