I had to check it out.
It would appear that there's a bill working it's way through the VA legislature that defines 'personhood' - that a fetus is a person. The effect of this is supposedly that it would ban many forms of birth control. Here are some quotes I found:
From Main Street Liberal (trying to keep the opinion out of it):
Quote:
In Virginia, the Republicans backing the personhood measure in that state had a chance to take the birth control argument off the table entirely. A Democratic Delegate Vivian Watts tried to attach an amendment to the Virginia bill that would declare nothing in that bill could be construed to outlaw any form of legal contraception. Republicans in the Virginia House of Delegates voted no on that by a huge margin. The vote was 64 to 34 against taking birth control out of the equation.
So, in Virginia, Republicans had a wide open opportunity to say this personhood thing, this bill is only about banning abortion, we do not want to ban birth control.
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From Channel 4 in Washington DC:
Afternoon Read: Virginia GOP Stirring Controversy Nationwide | NBC4 Washington
Quote:
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The GOP government has lobbied for bills that define personhood at conception, allow private adoption agencies to discriminate against gay couples and require women to get vaginal ultrasounds prior to abortions.
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So it looks like hormonal birth control (evidently what most women use) would be banned because the law would protect zygotes, fertilized eggs, blastocytes, etc (whatever development term you want to use) and, when given an opportunity to say the bill WOULDN'T ban birth control, the Republicans refused.
I would imagine this would also ban IUDs.