HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION NO

HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 18
(By Delegates Sumner, Lane and Sobonya)
[Introduced February 7, 2007; referred to the Committee
on Constitutional Revision then the Judiciary.]

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the State of West Virginia, amending article VI thereof by adding thereto a new section, designated section fifty-seven, relating to clarifying that nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of an abortion and designating such proposed amendment; and providing a summarized statement of the purpose of such proposed amendment.

Resolved by the Legislature of West Virginia, two thirds of the members elected to each house agreeing thereto:
That the question of ratification or rejection of an amendment to the Constitution of the State of West Virginia be submitted to the voters of the state at the next general election to be held in the year two thousand eight, which proposed amendment is that article VI thereof be amended by adding thereto a new section, designated section fifty-seven, to read as follows:
ARTICLE VI. THE LEGISLATURE.

§57. Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of an abortion.

Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of an abortion.
Resolved further, That in accordance with the provisions of article eleven, chapter three of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, such proposed amendment is hereby numbered "Amendment No. 1" and designated as the "Amendment clarifying that nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of an abortion" and the purpose of the proposed amendment is summarized as follows: "Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of an abortion."

NOTE: The purpose of this resolution is to amend the State Constitution to clarify that nothing in the Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of an abortion.

This section is new; therefore, strike-throughs and underscoring have been omitted.