Virginia lawmakers have decided not to move forward with legislation that would officially apologize for the state-sanctioned misuse of Black body parts over the past two centuries.
As far back as the 1800s, Old Dominion allowed medical professionals to conduct research on African-American bodies, living and dead, without their or their family’s permission. Some politicians were hoping in vain the state legislature would own up to exploitation.
However, on Friday, Feb. 17, the Rules subcommittee of Virginia’s House of Delegates voted 4-1 to lay SJ 274 on the table. This act, according to the Virginia Mercury, indefinitely killed the resolution.
Four Republicans among the subcommittee’s five members, House Majority Leader Terry Kilgore, Speaker Todd Gilbert, Del. Barry Knight, and Del. Kathy Byron, shut it down.
Titled “Unethical use of Black bodies by medical institutions; acknowledging with profound regret,” the bill was introduced by Democratic Sen. Jennifer B. Boysko of Fairfax.
During her presentation of the bill, she said it was important to acknowledge the past wrongs perpetrated by the government in order to heal wounds created by those wrongdoings.
Gilbert, one of the Republicans who voted against the resolution, said during the meeting, “I feel like there are thousands upon thousands of equally painful and hurtful and regrettable stories that could be told about how we treated one another, how Black Americans were treated for a very long time in this country. And I just worry that there’s no end to these resolutions, and maybe that’s the intent, I don’t know.”
One example of this was when the Medical College of Virginia hired grave robbers to steal Black bodies for medical experimentation in the 1800s when they did not have cadavers available for research.
“But certainly,” he continued. “If it helps for me to acknowledge that fact, that there are these many, many hurtful, painful memories and…
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