Update 4:15 pm ET: The Virginia personhood bill was shelved by the state’s full Senate hours after it was approved by the legislative body’s Education and Health committee. A 24–14 vote pushed the bill back to committee until 2013.

According to the Washington Examiner, Virginia Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment urged his fellow Republicans to help put the bill on hold.     

“There were many more complexities and nuances and legal arguments and legal perspectives on that bill that I had ever imagined,” Norment told the Examiner.

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A bill that would redefine the word ‘person’ to include human embryos from the moment of conception has moved forward in the Virginia state legislature.

Last week, the Virginia House passed bill HB1 by a clear majority (66 to 32). On the morning of 23 February, the bill was approved by the state’s Senate Committee on Education and Health, and will now be considered by the full Senate. If it passes, a version of the bill will advance to governor Bob McDonnell, who has not yet committed to signing the bill into law. Such a move would surely lead to a US Supreme Court challenge.

The goal of the personhood movement, championed by Colorado-based group Personhood USA, is to render abortion illegal and eventually elicit a repeal of the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe versus Wade, which protects a woman’s right to have an abortion.

Personhood efforts have sprung up in various states, including Colorado and Mississippi, where the public has voted against such measures (see Mississippi to vote on ‘personhood’) . However, the push for personhood continues in many states, including Oklahoma, where a bill is now under consideration by the state legislature.

The Virginia bill under consideration states:

…the term “unborn children” or “unborn child” shall include any unborn child or children or the offspring of human beings from the moment of conception until birth at every stage of biological development.

The bill notes that the law should not “be interpreted as affecting lawful assisted conception” and before reaching the Senate committee was amended to say that it should not “be interpreted as affecting lawful contraception.”

However, it remains unclear what forms of contraception and assisted conception would be lawful in the face of a successful HB1. Previous attempts at personhood amendments have raised concerns among legal experts that widely practiced in vitro fertilization techniques and some forms of birth control that prevent implantation of fertilized eggs could be considered illegal.

Virginia is also considering a law that would force women seeking an abortion to first undergo ultrasound imaging of the fetus, regardless of whether they view the resulting images.

Image of Virginia State Capitol courtesy Flickr User Will Weaver