Firestorm grows over Virginia school’s alleged secret abortion arrangement for minor student amid senator’s probe 

A scandal over a Virginia public school allegedly arranging abortions for minor students intensified this week, as the chairman of a key Senate committee launched a federal inquiry into potential misuse of taxpayer funds. 

U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee, is “demanding answers” after allegations that a school social worker at Fairfax County’s Centreville High School paid for one student’s abortion and attempted to arrange one for another student.  

“Let there be no mistake: a school official pressuring minor students to obtain covert abortions using school funding is illegal,” Cassidy said when announcing the probe.  

In August, the Substack-based W.C. Dispatch first reported that two female students claimed school officials “arranged and bankrolled abortions at Fairfax Healthcare Center without so much as a phone call to their parents,” in violation of a state law requiring parental notification.  

One of the students, who was 17 years old at the time, allegedly underwent an abortion. The other, who was five months pregnant and wanted to keep her baby, was allegedly told by school social worker Carolina Díaz she “had no choice” but to get an abortion. 

That student ultimately fled the clinic and confided in a teacher, Zenaida Perez, who went on the record about the incident being kept from the student’s parents.  

Taxpayer funds may have been used to arrange the abortions in violation of federal law, noted Cassidy, who said he is “investigating these serious allegations to ensure Americans’ tax dollars were not illegally used to pressure young students into having abortions.” 

The HELP committee will be conducting oversight to determine how the abortion facilitation could have occurred, and to hold the appropriate school officials accountable, he added.  

The congressional oversight comes as a state investigation, ordered by Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, also is underway. The governor said he was “deeply concerned” with the allegations – both that the abortion arrangements were made without parental consent and that school officials may have misused public funds – and ordered state police to open a full criminal investigation.  

A representative of Fairfax County Public Schools told The Lion it has received Cassidy’s inquiry and “welcomes the opportunity” to provide information to the congressional committee.  

“We want to reiterate that the conduct alleged would be completely unacceptable in Fairfax County Public Schools,” the district representative said. “Although there is also a state police investigation pending, we are committed to cooperating with the Committee’s inquiry, to the fullest extent possible, and expect our forthcoming response to shed important light on the critical facts.” 

Cassidy set an Oct. 6 deadline for answers to a list of questions about the school district’s student pregnancy policies and parental notification requirements, as well as whether the district believes school officials should recommend that minors receive abortions. 

He also questioned school leadership’s knowledge of the abortion arrangements and whether there was any investigation prior to the incidents being publicly reported.    

The congressional inquiry is already receiving praise from a pro-life group in the state, the Virginia Society for Human Life, which called the allegations a “serious situation” that “must be pursued.”  

“Virginia has a parental consent law because we know that minors are vulnerable to manipulation and fear when facing a teen pregnancy,” the group’s president, Olivia Gans Turner, said in a statement. “They need their parents at such a time.  

“Sadly, we also know that there are individuals with other agendas willing to skirt the law and put young mothers in harm’s way.”