Notwithstanding any of the provisions of § 18.2-71, it shall be lawful for (i) any physician licensed by the Board of Medicine to practice medicine and surgery or (ii) any person jointly licensed by the Boards of Medicine and Nursing as an advanced practice registered nurse and acting within such person's scope of practice to terminate or attempt to terminate a human pregnancy or aid or assist in the termination of a human pregnancy by performing an abortion or causing a miscarriage on any woman during the first trimester of pregnancy.
Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-72
When abortion lawful during first trimester of pregnancy
Applied in 4 court decisions — leading case Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic (1993)
Most recently applied in 55 F. Supp. 2d 441 - Richmond Medical Center for Women v. Gilmore (July 1999)
1975, cc. 14, 15; 2020, cc. 898, 899; 2023, c. 183.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: Virginia Law Portal (LIS). Reproduced from public-domain Virginia statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.