Abortion foes have a new tactic: The hope that women can't look away.
Lawmakers in 11 states are considering bills that would offer or require ultrasounds before a woman gets an abortion. The most stringent are proposed laws in Nebraska, Indiana and Texas, which would require a doctor show the ultrasound image of the fetus to the woman, despite legal challenges to a similar measure in Oklahoma.
Sixteen states already have such laws.
This FF gambit falls under the 'informed consent' meme. This is how it works: everybody about to undergo any sort of medical procedure should be given enough information about what it entails, the risks, and so on, so that her or his consent is informed by facts.
No-one can argue with that, right?
So it should also apply to women seeking abortions. And it does.
End of story, right?
Nope. Because, according to the
So the state will force her to undergo and look at an ultrasound of the insides of her own uterus. And because even that's not enough, some states require the images be described to her. Indiana's law forces her to listen to 'fetal heartbeat'.
Oh, hell, I'll just let the idiocy of this be demonstrated by JJ in the recent and apparently ongoing 'debate' at StageLeft.
JJ quotes SUZY ALL-CAPS and then replies:
“Which refutes your point: people who support legal abortion are not upfront about what abortion does.”
Yes, none of us knows “what abortion does”. When I had one I thought I was just getting a brazillian wax job. Who knew???
12 comments:
Damn, I took this literally. I was imagining a watch with the numbers replaced by gestational stages. :)
Sorry, Dr. D. Somebody with PhotoShop skillz should have a go at such a thing. ;)
Say ... perhaps the pro-choice activists should focus on forcing legislators to ensure that this expansion of informed consent is not limited to abortions. Otherwise that would be discrimination against pregnant women, right?
Shouldn't everyone facing a medical intervention be pressured to drop the procedure? Because isn't that why all these costly additional services are being provided? Who is paying for all these extra sonographs - no-choice organizations?
In the Chronicle story, a pro-choice person says that women are often directed to free ultrasounds offered by Crisis Pregnancy Centres. You know, those Xian-run operations that use the usual lies about abortion=breast cancer, abortion=infertility, abortion=insanity to er, counsel women about their choices.
How so very convenient.
"OK now I want you to look very closely at your baby"
"I don't see it"
"There. Right there."
"I can't see it. Is it behind the raspberry?"
Alison funny.
I've seen ultrasounds of my innards. Squishy, pulsing stuff. Who the hell knows what's going on?
Plus, if you mic'ed your innards, you'd pick up a heartbeat alright. Your own.
You are of course forgetting one important thing about this. If the women wind up being directed to one of the Crisis Pregnancy Centres they will most likely not be seeing an actual representation of their fetus, but rather a fully developed one on tape as it were.
The people who are pushing this have absolutely no moral objection to lying their little heads off and I have absolutely no doubt that they would do so if they managed to get the power to force this upon women.
Anonymous: On tape? Is there any documentation of this? That would be grand to have.
Sorry Fern, nothing I would consider fully documented yet but there is more then enough smoke to consider looking for a fire.
This story includes the quote:
"But pro-choice advocates say the clinics favored by Choose Life don't deal fairly with clients. "Crisis-pregnancy centers entice women with free pregnancy tests and then provide them with misinformation in an effort to dissuade them from having an abortion," said Vicki Saporta, executive director of the National Abortion Federation. She says the pregnancy centers have been known to trick an unsuspecting client with fake ultrasound results in an effort to persuade her to have the child. They give misinformation like claiming abortion leads to breast cancer, she says, and have sometimes gone as far as tricking laboring women into signing away their newborns for adoption."
But as far as I know no one has actually been caught doing it as a general practise. But considering the private nature of this decision I am not surprised that an actual smoking gun is difficult to find.
No kidding. If they were fabricating results that would be grounds for legal prosecution I would suspect.
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