Last January, Virginia was enmeshed in a huge controversy over abortion laws, after Republicans and anti-abortion advocates mischaracterized a reproductive health bill introduced by Democrats as trying to legalize infanticide.

Now, a year later, with Democrats in control of all levers of state government, the commonwealth is rolling back the abortion restrictions passed in 2012, when Republicans were in the majority.

On Tuesday, the House of Delegates voted 52-45 to get rid of requirements that patients obtain an ultrasound and wait 24 hours before an abortion procedure, as well as restrictions that impacted abortion providers, including allowing physician assistants and nurse practitioners to perform the procedure and dismantling rules that required clinics that perform multiple abortions monthly to have the same standards as hospitals. Those in favor of the abortion restrictions said they were intended to protect women.

But those policies had local consequences, including making it harder for women’s health care centers to operate. A lawyer for the Falls Church Healthcare Center said in 2015 that the passage of the hospital restrictions “threaten to put out of business many of the women’s health care centers in Virginia. We believe that they were politically motivated and ideologically driven attempts to close health care centers.” (That clinic was part of a group of plaintiffs that sued the Commonwealth in 2018 over what they said were Virginia’s unconstitutional and medically unnecessary restrictions on reproductive healthcare.)

The state senate saw a closer vote on Wednesday. During a 20-20 tie in which controversial state senator Joe Morrissey, a Democrat, voted alongside Republicans to keep the abortion restrictions in place, Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax stepped in to break the tie.

Governor Ralph Northam backs the legislation.

When enacted, the legislation means that Virginia will join both the District and Maryland in not having a waiting period for abortions or a requirement that patients first obtain an ultrasound.

The changes that Democrats have made since taking control of the legislature aren’t limited to abortion—they’ve also passed the Equal Rights amendment this week and on Thursday, the House passed seven pieces of gun control legislation. They’re also looking at raising the minimum wage.

Indeed, it’s a historic time in Richmond. As the Washington Post pointed out earlier this week, “white men from red parts of Virginia hold less power this year than any time since Reconstruction.”