Texas Sonogram Abortion Law Signed By Rick Perry

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Texas Governor Rick Perry Thursday signed into law a measure requiring women seeking an abortion in the state to first get a sonogram.

Texas is one of several U.S. states with strong Republican legislative majorities proposing new restrictions on abortion this year. The Republican governor had designated the bill as an emergency legislative priority, putting it on a fast track.

Under the law, women will have to wait 24 hours after the sonogram before having an abortion, though the waiting time is two hours for those who live more than 100 miles from an abortion provider.

"Governor Perry was pleased to sign this important legislation, which bolsters our efforts to protect life by ensuring Texans are fully
informed when considering such an important decision,'' said Katherine Cesinger, a spokeswoman for the governor.

A sonogram is an imaging technique using high-frequency sound waves to produce images of a developing baby in a woman's uterus.

Under the measure, women will be offered the option of hearing the heartbeat and seeing the sonogram image, which they may decline. But the woman's doctor must describe the image, explaining the size of the embryo or fetus and the presence of organs and limbs.

In certain cases, including those involving rape and incest victims or serious fetal abnormalities, the woman could decline to hear the description of the sonogram.

Opponents of the legislation said the law interferes in the doctor-patient relationship by adding a government requirement for a procedure that could be traumatizing to women going through an already difficult situation.

During debate on the House floor in March, Democratic state Representative Carol Alvarado wielded a trans-vaginal probe used for sonograms early in pregnancy.

"This is government intrusion at its best,'' she said during that debate.

(Editing by Will Dunham)

Copyright 2010 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.

Comments

[wforvendetta]

11:33 PM on 06/17/2011

Will men someday be ordered to watch baby videos before they masturbate?

[wforvendetta]

11:28 PM on 06/17/2011

What's next? A law that reqiures the doc to rub the woman's face in the remains of her aborted fetus?

[zneask]

07:33 PM on 06/09/2011

That's interesting....I thought PP gave sonograms already. I had one when I went, and I saw the black cloud with a white dot in it...didn't change my mind strangely.

[Jessica Correa]

06:38 PM on 05/29/2011

Oh, Perry. You're so funny! You speak of no government intervention and whine about how US citizens need to be less dependant on it. And here you are trying to use government to serve your personal agendas. I also laughed when your stubborn-ass refused the state money Obama offered us. And then the severe firestorm hit us a few weeks ago, destroying farmland and animals. We could've recieved aid, but Obama remembered what you said so we got crap. You stood with your tail between your legs while Texan farmers cried out for help.

I also love how we're currently under an education budget crisis. It's prompt TX to let go of top teachers because they're too expensive to keep (my sister among them - she has a double masters in biology and chemistry and is a special ed teacher, yet, here she is, trying to find a job because they're letting her go). This July teachers will know if the government will release funds to give teachers like my sister jobs. Meanwhile, you've done nothing BUT CUT BACK THE EDUCATION BUDGET. I'm beginning to think that you WANT our state to raise stupid children, just so we can re-elect you and not know better.

So bravo, Rick Perry. You're really something. You'd rather spend our tax payer money on your mansions and on laws like this. And it's nice to know you consider sonogram laws an a 'priority' over something like an education crisis. Yes, bravo indeed.

[ReaganNation]

07:08 PM on 05/25/2011

This is to give women 24 hours to think about whether they want to accept responsibility for their actions or spend eternity engulfed in flames.

[mom4infl]

02:02 PM on 05/27/2011

At the end of that day, though, it's STILL HER CHOICE.

[anthonybrown]

05:17 PM on 05/27/2011

And at the end of the day, if you REALLY believe in "my body, my choice" and "keep your laws off my body," when it comes to your 18 year-old daughter wanting to visit the Kevorkian physician-assisted suicide clinic because she failed her physics test, "it's STILL HER CHOICE."

At least, that is, if "it's still her choice" is an actual principle of yours, and not just a nifty bumper sticker slogan.

I suppose I'll being seeing you at the next physician-assisted suicide on demand rally, right?

[capn moose]

12:48 AM on 05/25/2011

These anti-abortion bills are not about abrtion, they are about men trying to regain the control over women they lost when women's suffrage was made the law of the land. As a man, I cannot stand to hear these men act as if they are upholding some higher law, they are protecting unborn children, they are on the moral high ground. Nonsense and blather and total lies. Men, afraid of their own sexuality and afraid that women have a brain, want to go back to the club over the head and drag them by the hair society when men could be "men" and didn't need no stinkin' women telling them what to do. Oh, when the high-rollers want to get rid of a pregnancy that could be embarrassing they certainly can find a way, behind the barn, in the alley or just over the border. These guys are hyprocites.

[proffordisabilities]

10:09 AM on 05/24/2011

Dear MadLib,

Thank you for your service and your courage, it sure takes a lot more to do the infantry than to do intelligence. And whoever is in charge of the next budget needs to allocate more funds to vets and especially their mental and emotional therapies that last for the most part, the rest of their lives. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is totally personality changing and our government wants to remain unresponsive, which is a crime, and I hope that for our vets coming home from these wars, they do them justice, and not turn their faces on the mental disabilities they come home, no counseling, therapy, or medication, mentally DISABLED, ignore it, it grows into psychopathology, exploding in anger, we wonder why he shot all those people, shot his wife and kids at night but we know why, it costs money to help them, and this is where the politicians are really sick, sociopaths who refuse to respond to situations that we, the poorly paid, highly trained who warn them, and they ignore us because the treatment they won't pay for ends up in violence that we warned them about, which makes them sophisticated sociopaths because they didn't stop those mental explosions. They are guilty, they let it happen, and when our society realizes who let it happen, realize it is the avariced politicians who cut the funding for mental health, they are going to pay, somehow, I don't know, but they will, somehow the survivors will...

[Alicia Mauer]

02:35 AM on 05/24/2011

If you're making an exemption for women who have to travel, why bother passing the law at all? Not that I really mind. At least by adding that little aside, they've contradicted themselves and left a loophole for all women to work with; it just seems silly and redundant. Looks an awful lot like a waste of taxpayer money. As per usual.

[marie phd]

03:04 AM on 05/23/2011

the anti-abortioners in this country terrify me. The murder doctors, threaten people and force their choices upon women. They are not oppsed to lying and tricking people to get their way. They are extremely dangerous and their extremism is terrorism.

[anthonybrown]

08:57 PM on 05/23/2011

Thank goodness no woman has ever been pressured by her prochoice boyfriend or parents to have an abortion. I mean, the antichoicers are all liars and murderers, while the motives of anyone in the abortion industry are above reproach. No one, and I mean no one, who ever provided an abortion in this country EVER even thought about the monetary profit or any other personal or political motive.

You people all need to model your lives after abortion providers, paragons of virtue, every last one of them.

[marie phd]

06:17 AM on 05/24/2011

see anyone who forces another to do something arent prochoice - they are anti-choice, exactly the same as someone who would force a woman to keep a pregnancy they don't want.

how can you possibly know whats best for someone else when you don't know what choice means.

[jcbwell]

06:35 PM on 05/22/2011

And just how is this in any way a GOP measure for "small-government," how does it "reduce the deficit" or "increase American jobs," as was promised in the last campaign?

[anthonybrown]

05:20 PM on 05/27/2011

It isn't a GOP measure for "small government." You are correct in saying that many Republicans are hypocritical in this regard.

Similarly, one could ask "how is (abortion) in any way a Democratic measure for "defending the weakest and most vulnerable brothers and sisters. How is (abortion) in any way a Democratic measure for "being a voice for the voiceless?"

The answer is the same as it is for the Republicans: it is not. This makes them every bit as hypocritical.

[anthonybrown]

05:20 PM on 05/22/2011

Sonograms reduce abortion. Reducing abortions is supposed to be part of the "common ground" prochoicers are seeking with antichoicers.

[crowepps]

08:35 PM on 05/22/2011

It is my understanding that no abortion provider has ever had a woman, after the sonogram, change her mind and not have the abortion. Likely that's because women are already aware what pregnant means. Would sure be interested in your source for your claim that sonograms reduce abortion -- hopefully it's a more reliable source than priests or professional protestors who admit they're willing to 'lie for life'.

[anthonybrown]

08:31 PM on 05/23/2011

Actually, you're correct. Not ONE SINGLE American woman ever changed her mind about abortion after getting more information.

Similarly, not ONE SINGLE American woman ever got an abortion as the result of pressure. After all, Planned Parenthood is so exhaustive and thorough that they infallibly weed out any and all paying customers who may be pressured by a partner or family member.

[Alicia Mauer]

02:44 AM on 05/24/2011

Perhaps the above commenter believes that the very few women providers have turned away due to reactions to the sonogram or proof that continuing the termination would be unsafe or (depending on how pregnant the patient is in what state) illegal as "reducing abortions" but that's not the woman making a decision as much as a counselor labeling her unable to undergo the procedure, emotionally, or the doctor deciding the same, medically. I've heard very rare cases of the first and far to many cases of the second and while I guess it does limit abortions, it's not something that would be affected by waiting periods.

[Cynthia Dudley]

02:54 PM on 05/23/2011

Unnecessary medical procedures, which a sonogram for non-medical reasons would be, are hardly the common ground that pro-choicers seek. Proper education on women's health and reproductive issues, access to quality clinics for all women and birth control priced at levels that are affordable are far more likely to reduce unwanted or poorly timed pregnancies and then leaving only emergency terminations. Making it difficult or impossible for women to get healthcare because some jerks got elected is hardly "common ground".

[anthonybrown]

11:57 PM on 05/24/2011

I'm not clear how refusing to see a sonogram makes it "impossible for women to get healthcare."

Don't worry! Your stocks in abortion companies will continue to be profitable. All the
Texans will do is stop a few women from having a physician rip apart their daughter. Most every other abortion will continue as scheduled.

[ksker]

05:16 PM on 05/22/2011

Do not be mislead, by all the rhetoric.

This is about My Right To Choose.

It is not about what YOU “believe” I should choose.

It is about what “I” choose, what “I” believe, regardless of YOUR “beliefs”.

After all, isn’t that exactly why the majority of people “Chose” to come to this country in the first place?

That particular “Freedom to Choose What I Believe” was what the early pilgrims were all about, was it not?

That is what makes America great, the fact that these are inalienable rights in the “United” STATES of America.

I realize that the reason behind all these backward states trying to blackmail women into the Supreme Court with their New Un-Constitutional Laws, are due to the” five right wing radical Judges in the Court.

Nevertheless, for all of you in this country, who now enjoy going to Church every Sunday, how do you feel about a differing Religions Organization, telling you that you must attend their Church because they believe yours is “UNSCRIPTURAL”?

In essence, this is going to be the brave fight between Church and State, and if the “church” wins, religious freedom dies.

[anthonybrown]

08:53 PM on 05/23/2011

Right. And when your 18 year-old daughter CHOOSES to go to the Kevorkian Suicide Clinic because she failed her calculus test, the law should NOT stop her. Because, as a wise person once wrote...

This is about Her Right To Choose.

It is not about what YOU “believe” she should choose.

It is about what “she” chooses, what “she” believes, regardless of YOUR “beliefs”.

After all, isn’t that exactly why the majority of people “Chose” to come to this country in the first place?

That particular “Freedom to Choose What I Believe” was what the early pilgrims were all about, was it not?

In fact, if you think about it, the "choice" argument is actually MUCH STRONGER for physician-assisted suicide than it is for abortion. In abortion, there is the murkiness of the rights of a second entity involved. In physician-assisted suicide, it is your daughter's body and HER BODY alone that is being impacted.

Guess I'll be seeing you at the next physician-assisted suicide on-demand rally.

Right?

[Cynthia Dudley]

08:00 AM on 05/24/2011

Wow, that was just stupid.

[saint bernard mom]

03:23 PM on 05/22/2011

Not all abortions involve a living baby/being/whatever. Sometimes abortions have to be performed because things don't happen normally. When I had my tubes tied, there was a lady in the hospital with me who had to have an abortion. Her baby had died and there was no miscarriage or spontaneous abortion.
 
After about a month of monitoring her, her Dr said they needed to do this because it was not safe for her to have all this decaying inside her. She went thru what you would call today as a late term abortion with labor and all. Needless to say, it was heartbreaking for her and her husband.
 
Not all abortions are because someone does not want to be pregnant.

[Lynnette M Hardy]

11:44 PM on 06/23/2011

I agree that sometimes an abortion is a tragic necessity -- to protect the life of the mother, such as your friend from the hospital. I do sympathize with her. I can also understand how emotionally taxing it would be on a rape victim to be forced to bear for 9 months the seed of her assailant. I can't expect her to suffer through that. But what I despise is when a woman decides to have an abortion simply because it's not a convenient time in her life to be a mother. Children are never convenient. They're not supposed to be.

[JFetch]

09:17 AM on 05/22/2011

Wow. Reading the bill shows exactly what this guy that wrote it thinks of women who get abortions. It states that if a woman chooses not to get an abortion, the doctor must give her books on being a unwed mother, child support, and paternity. Because apparently married women never get abortions?

Also, the sonogram has to be done at a separate place that doesn't do abortions or send people to places that do abortions.

[StephenS]

04:21 PM on 05/23/2011

Thanks for those details. What a sad excuse for a law.

[BeverleeC]

09:08 AM on 05/22/2011

Can I sell my uterus to, say, France? Then no one in the U.S. can have a say on how I care for it, use it, or ignore it, without permission of the French government. It sure isn't safe in this country.