Bill Drennan, a Republican running for Virginia state House, seemed to suggest at a recent forum that women who get abortions be made to wear ankle bracelets, Blue Virginia’s lowkell reported Monday. His suggestion appeared to be an attempt to make a point about “common-sense” gun legislation, which he opposes because he claims that the Constitution does not allow restrictions on the right to own firearms. And by “ankle bracelets,” we’re assuming he means the law-enforcement kind used to track people accused or convicted of crimes, and not the Kay Jewelers kind.
Drennan, who is running against a field of candidates that includes Democrat Suhas Subramanyam (full disclosure: Subramanyam has been endorsed by People for the American Way, of which this website is a part), started out by equating aborted fetuses to the lives of individuals killed by gun violence. “The number of abortions in Virginia in 2017 was 17,210. The number of gun deaths, the misuse of guns, was 1,041. That’s a ratio of 16.5 to 1,” Drennan said. “How about this, contrarian? I’m going to impose commonsense restrictions on the constitutional right to an abortion? How about ankle bracelets? I don’t think very many people would agree with this.”
At the forum, hosted by Northern Virginia Community College at its Loudoun Campus and presented by the League of Women Voters of Loudoun County, Drennan described himself as a conservative and “conservator,” saying there are things about the American system that we need to preserve, and claimed he was responsible for the Nuclear football for President Ronald Reagan.
As lowkell reported, Drennan’s website falsely claims that Democrats in Richmond had proposed “legislation that would have eliminated restrictions on third-trimester abortions and legalized infanticide.” It also states that “life begins at conception” and that Drennan "opposes red-flag laws that are designed to strip citizens of their unalienable rights." Red-flag laws allow law enforcement to prevent people who may be a threat to themselves or others from accessing firearms.
In response to a question about whether or not he supported the Equal Rights Amendment, which would guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex, Drennan refused to say whether he supported it.
“The ERA has been dead for 37 years, so I don’t know how to respond to whether I support it or not,” Drennan said. “I do not support dead legislation.”
