Virginia Is the Firewall, and They Already Burned the Bridge
By Lisa Hayes for Confluence Daily
They don’t care that 70% of you want this.
The Virginia General Assembly just adjourned without letting you vote. The constitutional amendment to protect abortion rights? Dead in committee. Again. The same resolution that passed the Senate. The same resolution with the signatures, the procedure, the majority support. They just… decided not to.
Now you wait until 2027.
THE DELAY TACTIC
Republican leaders in the House killed it. Not by winning arguments. By running out the clock. By burying democracy in paperwork while they still can.
This is what it looks like when they know they’re losing. They don’t persuade. They obstruct. They hope you forget by November.
THE MATH THEY FEAR
Virginia has 400,000 more women than men. In a fair fight, they lose. So they rig the fight.
They’re counting on you not tracking the procedural details. Counting on you to hear “2027” and feel exhaustion. Another year. Another fight. Another reason to check out.
Don’t.
WHAT HAPPENS IF THEY GET AWAY WITH IT
If Virginia falls, the South falls. North Carolina, Georgia, Florida—they’re watching. If the first Southern state to protect abortion rights can’t even get the question to voters, the message is clear: your majority doesn’t matter. Your organizing doesn’t matter. Your rage is just noise.
WHAT HAPPENS IF WE MAKE THEM PAY
We primary every coward who voted to silence us. We run for the seats they think they own. We turn 2027 into their nightmare—a legislature that can’t ignore us anymore.
The amendment isn’t dead. It’s waiting. The question is what we do with the time.
THEY WANT YOU TIRED
They want “2027” to feel like surrender. Like the system is too broken, the delays too long, the deck too stacked.
Let them think that.
Let them believe we’ve gone quiet. Let them sleep through the organizing, the voter registration, the precinct walking. Let them wake up in a primary they didn’t see coming, defeated by the women they thought they could outwait.
YOUR BODY. YOUR VOTE. THEIR NIGHTMARE.
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