Handwritten notes reveal Sears is “morally opposed” to protecting reproductive freedom and same-sex marriage

VIRGINIA – Tomorrow, Winsome Earle-Sears will campaign with the Faith & Freedom Coalition, a far-right anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ group. Sears’ extreme record pushing for a near-total abortion ban and threatening same-sex marriage mirrors the group’s goal to enact a nationwide abortion ban and attack same-sex marriage.  

“Winsome Earle-Sears’ campaigning with another extreme anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ group signals her extreme agenda to roll back rights in the Commonwealth. While Virginians deserve a governor who puts Virginia first, Sears is choosing to stand with an extreme group who has repeatedly attacked reproductive freedom and same-sex marriage," said DPVA Spokesperson Maggie Amjad.

Read more about Sears’ extreme record:

• In multiple interviews, Sears has made clear her support for restrictions on abortion.

  • In a 2022 interview she said, “we need to make our choices before we’re pregnant, not, you know, after, you already made a choice.”
  • During her campaign for lieutenant governor she called abortion “genocide."

• Sears left a handwritten note that she is “morally opposed to this bill [...]” on the constitutional amendment that would protect reproductive freedom in Virginia, including contraception, abortion, and IVF. 
• Sears has said that she would support an abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest.

  • January 2021: The Winchester Star reported that Sears said she wanted to make abortion illegal in all cases, unless the life of the mother was at risk.

• Sears vowed to “do everything in [her] power” to end abortion in Virginia.

  • Sears’ 2021 lieutenant governor campaign website: “I will do everything in my power to stop this act from taking place in Virginia.”

    • Sears attempted to scrub this abortion section from her website around September 2021.

• Sears “couldn’t resist” voting against this legislation to guarantee Virginia women’s access to contraception and then admitted she would not sign the Right to Contraception Act into law.
• Sears has declared she is “standing shoulder to shoulder” with the far-right fight against IVF.
• Sears left a handwritten note on a bill protecting marriage equality that she is “morally opposed” to the legislation. 
• During an interview with Richmond's 8 News, Sears doubled down on her opposition to marriage equality and refused to say that she would support anything other than civil unions for same-sex couples.
• Sears has touted multiple anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion endorsers who have equated homosexuality to being a pedophile  and said LGBTQ people have “confused minds.” 
• Sears wrote an op-ed saying that “society has gone immeasurably beyond almost all standards in accommodating the homosexual community over the last couple of decades” and called for a constitutional amendment “preserving the institution of marriage to be between a man and a woman.”

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