Virginia Delegate Kathy Tran (D) and other state Democrats were forced to take security precautions this week after anti-abortion activists began sending a flurry of death threats and racist messages over HB 2491, an abortion bill that was defeated on a party-lines vote during a subcommittee hearing Monday.

The bill would have reduced from three to one the number of doctors required to sign off on medically necessary third-trimester abortions, a procedure that has not been performed in the Commonwealth for the past three years, according to the Virginia Department of Health. Most states do not require two doctors to sign off on the medical necessity of a third-trimester abortion, let alone three.


The Post reported on Thursday that Tran and her family had, as a result of the GOP-circulated video, “received death threats through telephone messages, email and social media, leading to extra police protection for her and her family, and difficult discussions with her elementary-school-aged children.”

On Friday, the Democratic Party of Virginia shared with ThinkProgress audio of a death threat it had received.

In the recording, an unidentified caller incorrectly claims the party is proposing to legalize murder and then quotes a Stephen King novel to threaten the lives of the Virginia Democrats. “Redrum, redrum, soon we will come,” the caller says, a reference to The Shining and the word “murder” spelled backwards.