Here's How Incumbents In Virginia's 1st, 2nd And 5th Congressional Districts Have Voted On Abortion

By Charlotte Rene Woods, Virginia Mercury

October 1, 2026

Abortion is on the ballot this fall, with Virginia voters slated to select their next slate of congressional representatives after federal protections for the procedure ended in 2022.

Voters will also decide on Election Day whether a reproductive rights amendment should be cemented into the state’s constitution, reflecting the weight abortion and reproductive healthcare access are levying in both state and federal elections this year.

A Pew Research Center survey conducted earlier this year found that 60% of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

More than 12% of Virginia respondents in The Mercury’s ongoing reader survey name shrinking healthcare access — including reproductive healthcare — as a top motivator for them to cast their ballot for any candidate.

Republican incumbents in three of Virginia’s congressional districts that could help determine partisan control of the U.S. House of Representatives — the 1st, 2nd and 5th — have all voted for abortion bans or restrictions.

1st Congressional District’s Wittman supported a six-week limit

U.S. Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Westmoreland, is facing Democratic challenger Shannon Taylor in the 1st District. With a large voter population centered in Henrico, Chesterfield, Hanover and James City counties, the district stretches from Westmoreland to Newport News and wraps around Richmond’s west side.

Historically a safe GOP seat, the district has grown more politically purple in recent years. In late September, veteran analyst Larry Sabato’s nonpartisan political analysis newsletter changed the district’s rating from “leans Republican” to “toss up.”

In 2017, Wittman co-sponsored the Heartbeat Protection Act.

Reproductive rights advocates have said the bill and similar ones from other members of Congress effectively propose a six-week abortion ban, as some embryonic cardiac activity can be detected as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.

When Texas enacted a state-level version of the law in 2021, physicians called it “misleading” to refer to activity detected in ultrasounds during that phase of pregnancy as a heartbeat, because fetuses have not yet developed heart chambers.

“What pregnant people may hear is the ultrasound machine translating electronic impulses that signify fetal cardiac activity into the sound that we recognize as a heartbeat,” an American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists online guide stated.

More recently Wittman has voted against the Women’s Health Protection Act. That bill would have codified federal abortion protections and has been reintroduced numerous times since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

H.R. 1, the reconciliation bill Congress passed last summer which is slated to put 300,000 Virginians at risk of losing Medicaid, also excluded Planned Parenthood from Medicaid reimbursement for one year.

The organization provides reproductive healthcare, including abortions.

Wittman’s campaign team didn’t reply to The Mercury’s interview requests.

Meanwhile, Taylor has no track record of reproductive votes because she has not served as a lawmaker.

On the anniversary of the Supreme Court overturning federal protections in June, Taylor vowed to work to restore them if she joins the nation’s legislature and to ensure patients and doctors are not criminalized for the procedure.

Emily’s List, a national organization that backs pro-reproductive rights candidates, has endorsed her.

Jen Kiggans voted to block veterans’ abortions

Kiggans is seeking reelection in Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, one of the most contested political battlegrounds in the country.

The district, which has oscillated between partisan control over the years, stretches from the Eastern Shore through Virginia Beach and down to Chesapeake and Suffolk. It also includes the state’s highest concentration of military constituents.

During 2023’s annual defense spending appropriations, Kiggans voted for a provision to block military personnel from being able to receive abortions, regardless of where they are stationed.

She also voted to block abortions at Veterans Administration medical centers and to block the Defense Department from paying for expenses related to abortions.

“Taxpayers should not be funding elective procedures,” Kiggans told WAVY, a Hampton Roads NBC affiliate, in 2023. “If I wanted to get a Hollywood nose job in California, I do not expect the Navy to pay for my travel expenses to get there.”

Kiggans’ challenger, Democrat Elaine Luria, also previously represented the district for two terms before Kiggans ousted her in 2022.

Luria’s reproductive voting record includes supporting the Ensuring Women’s Reproductive Right to Freedom Act and the Women’s Health Protection Act. Both bills cleared the House but did not advance further.

Though Kiggans didn’t clarify if she would have voted for a national 15-week limit, which former South Carolina Rep. Lindsey Graham proposed in a failed 2022 bill, she called the idea “common sense.”

Kiggans’ campaign did not respond to interview requests for this story.

Virginia’s reproductive rights amendment reflects years of similar debates between state legislators’ over gestational limits for abortions.

In 2023, as Republicans lost their majority in Virginia’s House of Delegates, many GOP candidates coalesced under a 15-week proposal that lacked exceptions for severe fetal anomalies — which are often not diagnosed until around or after 15 weeks.

John McGuire carried a life-at-conception bill

In the 5th District, U.S. Rep. John McGuire, R-Goochland, is seeking a second term against Democrat Tom Perriello, who previously represented the district for one term from 2009 to 2011.

The 5th is the state’s largest district, sprawling from just north of Charlottesville down to Danville at the North Carolina border.

It has long been a stronghold for Republicans, but Perriello represents a formidable challenger for McGuire, as the lone Democrat to hold the seat in the past 20 years. The Cook Political Report shifted the district’s rating from “Solid R” to “Likely R” in late September.

Republicans nationwide are also fending off criticism over inflation, the Iran war, and healthcare affordability concerns.

McGuire, a military veteran and former state lawmaker, co-sponsored a “life at conception” bill in 2025.

The bill would have confirmed that “the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human being at all stages of life, including the moment of fertilization, cloning, or other moment at which an individual comes into being.”

The measure didn’t include exceptions for rape, incest or danger to the life of a pregnant person. It did include a disclaimer noting the bill didn’t “authorize the prosecution of any woman for the death of her unborn child.”

On social media, McGuire called abortion “American genocide” and while still a state lawmaker, he carried a bill to block public funding for abortions. His campaign did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

Democrat Perriello once voted in favor of a ban

In contrast to Perriello’s current campaign pillars that include protecting reproductive rights, he once voted for an abortion restriction during his term in Congress.

In 2009, as Congress was creating the Affordable Care Act — a health insurance marketplace for people without employer-provided healthcare — an unsuccessful provision emerged to block federal funding from covering abortions except for rape, incest or to save the life of the pregnant person.

Though the bipartisan amendment ultimately didn’t make it into the ACA’s final version, Perriello was among Democrats to vote with Republicans to advance the amendment.

Perriello did not answer directly when asked to explain his reasoning for the vote at that time, but his spokesperson Brytan Mendes said that Perriello would try to recodify federal abortion protections if he is elected.

“Tom would join efforts to codify access to contraception, abortion, and fertility care nationwide, so no family’s rights depend on their ZIP code,” Mendes wrote in an email, adding that Perriello also supports all three of Virginia’s constitutional amendments.

Early voting in Virginia began on Sep. 18 and runs through Oct. 31. Election Day is Nov. 3. Visit The Mercury’s Voter Guide to learn more.

This story was originally published by the Virginia Mercury. For more stories from the Virginia Mercury, visit Virginia Mercury.com.