"Please wait in the shaming room."

Doonesbury, always at the cutting edge of the US progressive body politic, had its syndicated comic strip banned in some of the newspapers in which it is syndicated.

[...]cartoonist Garry Trudeau has defended his cartoon strip about abortion, which several US newspapers are refusing to run, saying he felt compelled to respond to the way Republicans across America are undermining women's healthcare rights.

The strip, published on Monday and scheduled to run all week, has been rejected by several papers, while others said they were switching it from the comic section to the editorial page.

In an email exchange with the Guardian, Trudeau expressed dismay over the papers' decision but was unrepentant, describing as "appalling" and "insane" Republican state moves on women's healthcare.

The issue? US state laws that force women seeking a pregnancy termination to subject themselves to an ultrasound scan, or sonogram and to view it, in the presence of medical staff.

fern hill has blogged extensively about such sexist harassment.

No shaming, no abortion. The religious rightwing political zealots in the US want to make sure that all "sluts" are punished for having sex.

Why not just force men to wear chastity belts - male ABSTINENCE!!!!

But that might not go over well with all those swinish, gynophobic Republican dickheads.

State Rape

I have a suggestion for women like this:

CNN contributor and Andrew Breitbart blogger Dana Loesch, however, sees no problem with a law that effectively legalizes state-sponsored rape, saying the procedure is no different than penetration that occurred during consensual intercourse that “resulted in the pregnancy.”

Dana,



meet Small Government.



Every female supporter of Vaginia's State Rape law should be forced to have a transvaginal ultrasound. I recommend the determined and thorough tech at Mt Sinai Hospital who did mine.

We breathlessly await your opinion post-procedure.




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Republic of Gilead Watch

To continue DJ!'s Republican of Gilead Watch, here are some more details on Vaginia's march towards it from Dahlia Lithwick.

This week, the Virginia state Legislature passed a bill that would require women to have an ultrasound before they may have an abortion. Because the great majority of abortions occur during the first 12 weeks, that means most women will be forced to have a transvaginal procedure, in which a probe is inserted into the vagina, and then moved around until an ultrasound image is produced. Since a proposed amendment to the bill—a provision that would have had the patient consent to this bodily intrusion or allowed the physician to opt not to do the vaginal ultrasound—failed on 64-34 vote, the law provides that women seeking an abortion in Virginia will be forcibly penetrated for no medical reason. I am not the first person to note that under any other set of facts, that would constitute rape under state law.

What’s more, a provision of the law that has received almost no media attention would ensure that a certification by the doctor that the patient either did or didn’t “avail herself of the opportunity” to view the ultrasound or listen to the fetal heartbeat will go into the woman’s medical record. Whether she wants it there or not. I guess they were all out of scarlet letters in Richmond.

An anti-choice commenter at the link points out that the bill doesn't actually stipulate 'vaginal' ultrasound. True, comes the reply, but since gestational age (information required by the bill) can't be reliably determined from a stomach ultrasound until after 12 weeks, women submit to vaginal ultrasound or wait.

Lithwick raises another issue raging in the Excited States: conscience rights. While Tighty Righties are all hot and bothered about the conscience rights of the Fetus Lobby, Lithwick ponders the conscience rights of healthcare providers who perhaps find that being forced to RAPE someone kinda violates their conscience and ethics. What about their conscience fucking rights?

By the way, the fetish fetishizing governor of Vaginia, Bob McDonnell, who is favour of this bill, is being touted as a possible candidate for vice-president under Romney.

Which will just about cement what more and more Merkins are realizing. The Republican Party is completely out of touch.

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ADDED: Couldn't resist.



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