Following the election of Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger (D) last November, state Democrats have advanced a series of highly controversial ballot initiatives that would enshrine constitutional rights to abortion, gender identity, and voting for felons and those who are mentally incapacitated. Experts say that a significant minority of Republican officials in the state are offering little opposition to the Democratic agenda.

Before Spanberger was even sworn into office in early January, Virginia House Democrats rammed through four proposals for amendments to the state constitution. The first one would have redrawn the Old Dominion’s congressional district lines, likely leaving Republicans with a single representative in Congress despite making up 40% of the state’s population. Although the initiative narrowly passed in a statewide referendum in April, the state Supreme Court struck down the measure the following month, ruling that the constitutional guidelines for getting the referendum on the ballot were not followed.

But three more ballot initiatives are slated for the upcoming November elections that will not face legal challenge. One would amend the state constitution to allow convicted felons who have been released from prison to vote and would also make it more difficult to withdraw voting rights from those who are mentally incapacitated. Experts like Virginia attorney Tim Anderson say the measure is highly problematic.

“Felons rights to vote is one question. Letting mental[ly] incapacitated people vote is something much different,” he wrote in a Facebook post Tuesday. “This is not a ‘good intention’ amendment. This is about people who don’t know what year it is still being able to vote … by of course someone working in the nursing home.”

Another would not only enshrine same-sex marriage into the Commonwealth’s state constitution, but also categorize “gender” as a protected class in the context of marriage. Anderson pointed out that the inclusion of “gender” in the amendment on same-sex marriage is particularly deliberate.

“[A]dding ‘gender’ to the Virginia Constitution will invite future litigation seeking to extend that language into other areas of family law, including adoption, parental rights, and custody disputes involving gender-identity issues,” he wrote. “This is not by accident. If Democrats wanted to enshrine gay marriage into the [C]onstitution they would have had language to do just that. That is NOT what’s happening here.”

“Other states have seen courts expand marriage-related constitutional language into areas voters never expected — take a look specifically at Massachusetts and Michigan where their Supreme Courts dramatically expanded rights beyond marriage,” Anderson continued. “Make no doubt about it — the gay marriage amendment is NOT about legalizing gay marriage. That has already been settled by SCOTUS. Any two gay men can legally get married in Virginia right this minute — no fuss — no obstruction. This is about transgender rights becoming protected classes in family law, school law and custody cases. This is about boys in girl’s locker rooms. This is about CPS being able to remove children from your homes if you don’t affirm their gender identity. This is about divesting parents of their rights … all cloaked under the ‘gay marriage’ banner.”

The third ballot referendum would, if passed, amend Virginia’s constitution to explicitly allow abortions effectively up until birth, provided that a physician authorizes that there is a medically indicated mental health issue for the mother. Currently, state law already allows for abortion up through the second trimester.

Anderson observed that despite the extreme nature of the proposed amendment, 17 of the 72 members of Virginia’s Republican State Central Committee, which governs state party operations, policy decisions, and approves official endorsements, voted that they would not oppose the three constitutional amendments.

In a video posted on Monday, Anderson contended that while all three amendments go directly against Republican principles, perhaps the most egregious is the abortion amendment, which states that “the Commonwealth may regulate the provision of abortion care in the third trimester, provided that in no circumstance shall the Commonwealth prohibit an abortion, that, in the professional judgment of the physician, is a medically indicated to protect the life or the mental health of the pregnant individual.”

“[T]his is what that language means,” he explained. “If a woman goes in to a doctor in the third trimester and has a perfectly healthy, viable baby, and there is a mental health reason for the mother that the doctor determines that the abortion should occur — baby’s healthy, mother’s healthy … the state would have no way to regulate that in Virginia. … [W]hy are we putting this into our Constitution that the state of Virginia, no future General Assembly, no future governor, could ever regulate abortion in the third trimester, so long as a doctor comes in and says having the baby would be [contrary] to the mental health of the mother? It’s insane. There’s no country in the world that acts like this, and yet we’re going to try to put it in Virginia’s constitution.”

Anderson further noted that even those who are pro-choice would say that there should be limits on third-trimester abortions. “I know that people in this state want abortion more than 70% … but when you ask those same 70%, ‘Should there be limits on abortion?’ Ninety percent of them say there should, and almost all of them say below 20 weeks.”

“We have to have something that we stand for, right?” Anderson underscored. “And in this particular case, healthy babies in the third trimester should be something that we stand for as a party every single time. If the mother can give birth in the third trimester, the baby is healthy, then the baby should be born. There should not be an option for a doctor or a mother to terminate a healthy pregnancy in Virginia simply for mental health reasons. … [T]hat is something everybody should be saying no to in Virginia, especially, every leader in the Republican Party on state Central Committee.”