State rape

The fetophiles south of the border are getting closer to legalizing rape by ultrasound probe:

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.

A similar bill was proposed in Wyoming but it was defeated in a state House committee before reaching the floor.

"Many times, these are young mothers who are in vulnerable situations. And they are about to make a very grave choice." said Nebraska Sen. Tony Fulton of Lincoln, who introduced the ultrasound bill (LB675) there. "This is about informed consent."

Sixteen states already have laws related to abortion ultrasounds, some requiring they be performed and others requiring a woman be told where she can get a free ultrasound.

But there's a big difference between getting an ultrasound for medical/health reasons and getting one because the forced-pregnancy types want to strap women down and force them to see the images all in the name of "A Woman's Right to Informed Consent" and "A Woman's Right to Optimal Reproductive Health."

That's the new tactic, doncha know, of these people.

The game now is to move away from posters of bloody chopped up babies and invocations of the Holocaust and toward co-opting the women's health message. Part of that is setting up the myth that women are emotionally and psychologically damaged by abortion, as if the anti-choicers' constant accusations of intentional evildoing have nothing to do with making a woman feel guilty.

But I digress.

Ever have one of these ultrasounds? First you have to drink a million glasses of water and hold it all in for hours, even as your bladder feels like it's going to explode. Then you lie down on a table, dying to pee, while a gooped-up probe is inserted and wiggled around while the technician presses down on that bursting bladder.

Good times.

But that's not enough for these anti-choicers. Oh no. They want to make women look at the monitors, presumably with clips holding their eyes open and vises keeping their heads in place.

Oh, and what about the headphones?

Indiana's proposal requires the mother to listen to the fetal heartbeat.

Oklahoma's law was supposed to go into effect Nov. 1, but a judge put it on hold after the Center for Reproductive Rights filed a lawsuit saying it intrudes on privacy, endangers health and assaults dignity.

"They really do not even veil their goal, which is to make a woman feel badly and to make her change her mind," said Celine Mizrahi, a lawyer for the New York-based center. "It really is a ridiculous position to put the doctor and patient in."

Most women who have decided to terminate a pregnancy have made the decision after considering facts and options, Mizrahi said. And the medical procedure, she said, is between a doctor and a patient.

Hah. Haven't you heard, women's wombs are the public squares of human organs?

Everybody wants to have a say in what goes in and comes out of that space.

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: Megan over at Jezebel makes a good point about the fetophiles who want to make this happen:

Of course, they haven't introduced any legislation to promote comprehensive sex education, nor backed expanded contraceptive funding for poor women, nor gone to town for expanded child care credits and subsidies to help the women who choose to have children but need to work. Once you get that baby birthed, sister, you're on your own — just as God intended you to be when He punished you with the pregnancy in the first place.

Comments

[deBeauxOs]

If these states have decided to harass pregnant women under the pretext of "informed consent" then all patients considering an elective medical procedure should be subjected to this potentially coercive process.

Otherwise it is a deliberate tactic intended to single out pregnant women for differential treatment and the appropriate legal form of class action suit should be initiated against the states.

[Kat]

Hmmm.

Are these states also going to make it mandatory that prison executioners sit down with inmates on Death Row who may be innocent, interview them, and listen to their hearts before the flick the switch/push the plunger/open the trapdoor/pull the lever?

There's been enough people who were innocent of the crime they were killed for that you could make all the same arguments.

But I don't suppose anyone who's pro-forced pregnancy will.

[KC]

The only fortunate thing is that an ultrasound at six weeks or so will show nothing much more than the clump of cells that embryo actually is. I'm not sure if that would have changed my mind... And I'm sure the fetal heartbeat is undetectable at most abortions. Still, totally ridiculous.

[Antonia]

Agreed KC. But this is what the fetophiles don't get. Look at their posters. They always show near-term babies. They go around screaming Holocaust! Genocide! But what we're usually talking about here is a lentil-sized clump of cells.

[neko]

I watched (voluntarily) a grotesque little film called The Silent Scream in Highschool (someone in Law class was doing a presentation on Abortion and had to show both sides of it but watching the film was voluntary; they weren't brainwashing us).

It had no affect on me whatsoever. I would still get an abortion if I had an unplanned pregnancy. I would get one if I had to watch an Ultra-Sound as proposed. I can stare at the pictures of Holocaust Victims and mangled babies all day, then go have myself an abortion and not feel the least bit upset about it.

I can walk past the heart-breaking eyes of kittens and puppies in a petstore window because I am unable to take them home and care for them as they deserve. All I can do is neglect and abuse them, because I don't have the money, space or time to care for them properly. Same thing for a baby. Can't treat it as it deserves, so not going to have it. The End.

I am immune to all the crazy arguments and images. But not everyone is me, so I can understand the fight against this whole "informed consent" brainwashing crap.

[Sebastian Stoker]

Antonia, you have been quite severe in your condemnation of these "right to life" goons, but can one ever be severe enough?

It seems that their message is that woman are nothing more that vehicles for fetuses; they do not even see woman as baby-making machines, as this would give woman too much significance and power.

It does seem strange that western forces are fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, while twisted, misogynist, benighted religious-extremist thought police gain more and more influence and power in the U.S. and Canada.

Haven't these twisted morality guides got anything better to do? How about helping the children already born to this world before fighting for the human rights of a clump of cells.

[The Stygian and his Shemitish Dogs]

"misogynist, benighted religious-extremist thought police"

the Ontario "Human Rights" Kommission, perhaps?