Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin has ordered a criminal investigation into allegations that public school staff arranged and paid for students’ abortions, the Republican governor announced Wednesday.
According to an office press release, Youngkin has directed the Virginia State Police to launch a criminal probe into claims of “school-funded abortions in Fairfax County” following allegations that officials at the county’s Centreville High School organized and provided funds for two minor female students to get abortions “without parental consent.” State law “requires that at least one parent be notified before a minor receives an abortion, unless a judge grants a bypass,” according to The Center Square.
“I am deeply concerned with the allegations that Fairfax County Public Schools officials arranged for minors to get abortions without parental consent and may have misused public funds to pay for them,” Youngkin said in a statement. “I am directing the Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation to open a full criminal investigation into the matter immediately.”
As indicated by the governor’s office, the call for an investigation comes in response to a bombshell Aug. 5 report by independent reporter Walter Curt. The reporting included an allegedly handwritten statement from one of the girls in question, detailing how, as summarized by Curt, social worker Carolina Díaz “scheduled the appointment, paid the clinic’s fees, and swore her to secrecy.”
“The girl, an 11th-grade ESOL student, says the abortion took place in November 2021—while she was still seventeen—making the concealment a straight-line violation of state law,” Curt wrote.
The report also includes allegations from a second female minor Centreville student, who Curt reported was “five months pregnant and wavering, [and] was allegedly told by the same social worker that she ‘had no other choice.‘” The female student, who Curt described as “terrified,” “ultimately bolted from the clinic rather than go through with the procedure.”
”She later confided in her teacher, Mrs. Zenaida Perez, who allowed her name to be used on the record and provided The W.C. Dispatch a recording of the family confirming that no one at the school had ever informed them of the intent to terminate their daughter’s pregnancy,” Curt wrote. “Both incidents, sources say, were green‑lighted by Principal Chad Lehman and financed—again, allegedly—through school funds, meaning taxpayer dollars may have underwritten clandestine abortions carried out on minors without parental knowledge.”
Fairfax County Public Schools has said it is investigating the reported allegations. When pressed by a local ABC affiliate about whether “FCPS staff members ever arranged abortions for students, and if [so] did they do so in this case,” the school district responded, “Not to [our] knowledge. We have launched an immediate investigation into these concerns as soon as we were made aware.”
The alleged incident is one of several controversies engulfing Fairfax County schools.
Last month, for example, the Education Department found that Fairfax is one of five Virginia school districts to be in violation of Title IX “because they continue to allow boys into girls’ private spaces like restrooms and locker rooms,” The Federalist’s Breccan Thies reported. The revelation came months after the school district got hit with a federal civil rights complaint over continued embrace of racially discriminatory policies.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood