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Legislators in Virginia moved forward yesterday on two bills placing additional restrictions on abortions in the commonwealth, including one that would define life as beginning at conception.

According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Virginia House of Delegates voted to approve a law that would require an ultrasound for any woman seeking an abortion. The measure was already passed by the Senate, and is likely to become law. (An amendment that would require any man looking seeking Viagra to get a rectal exam did not make it into the law.) During the debate, one Republican legislator supporting the measure called most abortions “matters of lifestyle convenience.” (He later apologized.)

But more troubling for pro-choice activists is the law that would define life as starting at conception, which they say would all but outlaw abortion and impose criminal penalties on the use of birth control. (Proponents of the law say that’s not true.) Reported Reuters:

Virginia’s approach differs from failed attempts to define a fertilized egg as a legal person in Colorado in 2008 and 2010 and in Mississippi in 2011.

Virginia’s effort avoids involving a constitutional amendment like those states, instead seeking changes throughout the legal code, said Elizabeth Nash, public policy associate at the Washington-based Guttmacher Institute, which studies reproductive health issues.

But she said the intent is the same, with the measure ultimately aimed at banning abortion, contraception and infertility treatment.

“Should this bill become law, it could have a far-reaching impact on women’s access to health care,” Nash said. “No state, as yet, has adopted anything like this.”

The measure next goes to a Senate committee, where Republicans hold a slim majority. Still, passage is not assured — the same committee voted down a proposed law last week that would have banned all abortions after 20 weeks, the very same law that a Utah senator and Arizona representative want to impose upon D.C.