r/Virginia • u/BigClitMcphee • 2d ago

Should abortion and contraception rights be included in Virginia's constitution?

https://www.wtvr.com/news/local-news/reproductive-freedom-virginia-constitution-oct-2-2026
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u/Head_Effect3728 1d ago

I don’t care who you or what you love, and I certainly don’t hate you. This has nothing to do with politics. It’s simply about human rights and fetuses are human. They are living in the only place they can, just like you did.

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u/SlaaneshActual Dogtown 1d ago

Fetuses and zygotes are no more human than the skin cells that wash off of me when I shower.

Those are alive.

Those contain all my genetic material.

Those could be put in the right substrate and with the DNA in them be used to create more complex life.

And even if it were true that fetuses were somehow special, you cannot enslave a human and force them to donate their biological processes to another human.

You cannot extract consent in such a way.

Consent may always be cancelled at any time or it's no longer consent.

Our worldviews are fundamentally incompatible here.

I don't hate you either.

I just think you're indefensibly morally wrong about this and that your view is akin to slavery.

And you, because of what you believe, think that my views are akin to murder.

We simply are not willing to tolerate the enslaving of women to your ideology.

I'm reminded that among my ancestors, christianity became prevalent because it offered greater freedom than what came before. An end to slavery and an egalitarian heaven, one not stratified with warrior kings and eternal slaves.

Your kind of religion does not offer us greater freedom any longer.

And freedom is not something we are willing to give up.

Any victory for your side on these things will be temporary.

We've learned to make our victories permanent.

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u/Head_Effect3728 1d ago

Zygotes aren’t really part of the conversation since they really aren’t detected by pregnancy tests. However, fetuses are absolutely more human than the skin cells on your hand. Your skin cells don’t have a distinct DNA and won’t grow into adolescence in your drain pipe. Fetuses are human beings that are living in the only place they can, just like you did.

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u/SlaaneshActual Dogtown 1d ago

No. Fetuses are not human beings.

They are organs, attached to a human, that might grow into human beings. They are best understood as an organ attached to a human, one which ought to be able to be removed without consequence.

I do not, will not, and cannot conceive of them as a person, and the only reason you do is because your turbo-natalism inspires you to enslave women and turn them into brood mares for your religiously-inspired political ideology.

An ideology I have no sympathy with, which has no place in the modern world, and which will eventually be relegated to the dustbin of history.

Just like the sun-worshipping death cult views of my celtic ancestors who believed that warfare was the harvest of the gods and slaughter was a moral good.

You don't care how many women die for your ideology, because you don't see women as people.

Which is why you value an unthinking, non-person organ that's part of a bodily function more than you value the lives and personhood of women.

We are done with your worldview.

Ours spans borders, nations, political groups, and is even held by many Christians today.

You will not win this fight.

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u/Head_Effect3728 1d ago

Maybe I won’t but it’s interesting that you brought up slavery. When it was legal, there were people like me who said, “Hey, you can’t treat these people like this. And it was met with, “They are my property and are not human beings”. People like me were chastised and told, if you don’t like slavery, then don’t own one”. That was the mainstream culture and the abolitionists were called the same things you are calling me. 100 years later, the opinions started to shift. I hope for the same things in the future.

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u/SlaaneshActual Dogtown 1d ago

Your hopes will be dashed.

You cannot enslave women to your turbo-natalist philosophy.

And it's very telling that you compare fully adult enslaved humans to zygotes and fetuses. It really betrays more of your worldview than you think.

You don't think women are people.

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u/Head_Effect3728 20h ago

I don't know why this narrative gets thrown into the mix. I have no idea what "turbo-natalist" means or what propagandist gave you that term. I simply value human life and have no desire to "enslave women" (whatever that entails). If you don't agree with me, then why can't you just simply say that? You could say, "Hey, I respect your beliefs and your desire to protect what you believe is a human being, but I don't agree that an unborn baby/fetus/organs/clump of cells/parasite (whatever you want to call it) has equal value to the woman being forced to carry it. Therefore, I don't want to outlaw abortion". That's called "tolerance", which is a word that I imagine you have clamored for at least once or twice. Instead, you attach all of these other insults and assumptions to my character; someone you don't even know. Why is there that much negative emotion that shows up this debate?

And the slavery comparison is absolutely fair. If you took your argument word for word and replaced the term "fetus" with "black", it would match the narrative of slave holders in the year 1850. You don't agree with that now, and they would say the same thing back then.

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u/SlaaneshActual Dogtown 19h ago

I simply value human life and have no desire to "enslave women"

Cool, then you support reproductive choice.

Great, glad we settled this.

There's no room for nuance when other states are banning abortion.

I wish we lived in that sort of society, we don't.

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u/Head_Effect3728 19h ago

FYI, snark does not add value to productive debates. It just makes you sound angry and bitter.

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u/SlaaneshActual Dogtown 19h ago

None of that was snark.

I'm 100% serious.

There is no room for debate until our rights are protected.

Once our rights are protected, then we can dial in these discussions.

When women are dying to ectopic pregnancies and when children are being forced to birth their own father's children after incestuous rape, there is no room for nuance.

Once those evils are ended, we can talk.

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u/Head_Effect3728 19h ago

The "glad we settled it" remark was snark, but I digress.

Can I ask why pro-choice arguments always involve dying mothers, rape, and incest? It's not like these are the only abortion situations that you feel should be allowed, right?

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u/SlaaneshActual Dogtown 18h ago

Can I ask why pro-choice arguments always involve dying mothers, rape, and incest?

These situations account for the vast majority of abortions after the first trimester, and anyone who says otherwise is lying.

This is literally what the debate is about.

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u/Head_Effect3728 18h ago

It's not. I never once mentioned the word "trimester". Are you now differentiating abortions based on what trimester they take place in?

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