The West Virginia Senate voted Friday to pass a bill restricting abortions.
Both houses of the West Virginia Legislature stayed late Friday and yet nothing definitive was decided.
The Senate voted 21-10 to pass a bill on abortion with many changes from a bill Delegates passed earlier in the week.
On Wednesday. West Virginia Delegates passed a comprehensive bill with narrow exceptions for abortion. The Delegates also maintained a criminal punishment of three to ten years incarceration if doctors and providers perform an abortion. Senators changed that provision from criminal punishment to license revocation.
Exceptions for rape and incest were narrowed further from fourteen weeks to eight weeks of pregnancy. A woman would still have to report the assault or obtain medical treatment for the assault.
The Senate’s bill also allows an exception for a non medically viable fetus such as an eptopic pregnancy or medical emergency.
Ultimately, House Republicans were not able to agree on the Senate’s changes and called for a conference committee to work out the differences.