For decades, the radical right has been chipping away at women's access to reproductive health care. After the 2010 elections, these attacks escalated into an outright War on Women. Now, the Republican presidential primaries are offering a disturbing glimpse into the supposed conservative vision for this country. In this right-wing utopia, women will no longer be able to exercise the right to control their bodies, plan their families or safeguard their own health. The church and the state will tell women what is best for them, and religious entities' "liberty" will consistently trump individual women's right to live and work free from discrimination and in accordance with their own religious and moral beliefs.
Much of the current he-man chest thumping is done for the benefit of voters who might be swayed to cast their ballots for the GOP based largely on social issues. And, as demonstrated in Virginia this week, conservative politicians are perfectly capable of putting on the brakes when proceeding with a piece of their anti-woman agenda appears to be backfiring.
Still, the right-wing commitment to keeping women in check is surprisingly strong and reveals a frightening disrespect, even contempt for women who aren't sufficiently submissive. Turning the clock back includes shaming women for their sexuality and punishing them for terminating a pregnancy (which is still legal, by the way). This brings us to one of the more degrading tactics up the radical-right sleeve: mandatory ultrasound laws.
Under these laws, before a woman can undergo an abortion procedure, a doctor must perform an ultrasound and offer the woman an opportunity to view the image of the fetus or hear a detailed description. As ultrasounds are rarely medically necessary prior to an abortion, these laws exist to demean the woman and make the procedure more expensive to boot. Ultrasound costs range from $300 to $700, and the woman, of course, is typically expected to pay for this state-mandated exam.
But the most disturbing aspect of these laws is that in the vast majority of abortions, which occur far too early in pregnancy for an external ("jelly on the belly") ultrasound to produce an image, the ultrasound must be transvaginal -- i.e., a long wand-like ultrasound probe must be inserted deep into the woman's vagina. This is, quite simply, state-sponsored rape. Even the FBI recognized last year, as most states did long ago, that vaginal penetration without a woman's consent is rape.
Currently, women living in seven states are subject to laws mandating ultrasounds as part of abortion services and two more have laws that are on hold pending legal challenges. But the issue did not come to national attention until the battle over Virginia's ultrasound bill blew up in a big way, thanks to online and on-the-ground organizing that helped spark public outrage.
Negotiations over the Virginia bill have unfolded throughout the month of February. With the Virginia Senate, the House of Delegates and the governorship under GOP control after the last election, legislators must have felt pretty confident adopting a bill with so little regard for women's dignity. Some Democrats pointed out that a mandatory ultrasound would be state-sanctioned rape and would violate a Virginia law making sexual penetration by an object a criminal act. The extremists were unfazed, one of them actually saying that women had already decided to be "vaginally penetrated when they got pregnant." Right. Tell that to the victim of rape or incest.
Earlier this week, Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell, cringing before a growing public backlash, rescinded his promise to sign the Virginia bill. He announced he wanted a requirement exclusively for an external ultrasound before abortion, saying he didn't think an "invasive procedure" should be a "precondition to another medical procedure." But he fully supports humiliating women with a medically unnecessary, nonconsensual, expensive procedure as a legal precondition to an abortion -- which, it bears repeating, is still legal.
The Virginia legislature then went back to the drawing board, with the House inserting a series of convoluted amendments that soften the bill but still require an abdominal ultrasound and the offer of a vaginal one if gestational age cannot be determined. But that just made the conservatives mad, and they threatened to kill the bill altogether. Its fate is now uncertain.
For supporters of women's rights, it's too soon to claim victory just yet. For one thing, any mandatory ultrasound law -- vaginal or abdominal -- is a violation of a woman's right to bodily integrity and an ugly intrusion on her right to choose to terminate a pregnancy. For another, two more states (Illinois and Pennsylvania) just announced that they are pursuing mandatory ultrasound laws.
But it's not to soon to learn a few lessons from this whole debacle. First, the right wing is trying to curb access to reproductive health care by any means necessary, and they're not afraid to use humiliation, shaming and even state-sponsored rape in the process. Second, and most importantly, women (and the men who support our fundamental rights) are powerful enough to stop them -- especially when we sound the alarm online, surround the statehouses, gather petitions and call, email, write and personally visit elected officials to tell them to get out and stay out of women's wombs. That is how we will win -- by standing up and speaking out, loud and unapologetically.
And it doesn't hurt to have Amy Poehler and Jon Stewart on your side.
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and we will not have to worry about women's health issues being run by religion. Bart have you got yourself fixed yet since you are so fixed on choices.
get rid of religion quicker than anything. All it really is a money making machine and to control
peoples' lives. If women are too afraid to do that then just quit going and contributing money
until religion gets out of our vaginas. If you do not want an abortion do not get one.
to fight this same battle since Roe v Wade.If you do not want an abortion, don't get one. If men
don't want abortions, then get fixed. Talk to your teenagers about sex. Why are so many people
embarrassed about something that is natural. Teenagers are going to have sex, teach them how
to protect themselves from STD and how birth control is used.
Family planning, with controlled timed pregnancies when a family is in position to afford a xchild makes families and women strong and ultimately better educated, both mothers and children, seeing through the lies of the totalitarians who seek 1%-er total control right down to the last pubic hair.
THIS IS A CATLLE PROD. nothing more nothing less.
women need to remember this when going to vote for the GOP men and women .
THIS IS WHAT THE CHURCH AND REPUBLICAN PARTY WANTS TO DO TO US WHEN WE DO NOT OBEY THEIR ORDERS>
Anyone who would use the word "rape" in the same sentence with "ultrasound" should be ashamed. Rape is an act of violence forced on a woman, often by knife or gun point, intent on doing harm, injuring and, too often, death. An ultrasound is a routine medical procedure. To even compare the two is unconscionable. It will never be done without a woman's consent, if she wants an abortion.
What is the real fear here? That a woman can actually see, if she so chooses, exactly what she is doing? In a surgical abortion, a whole lot more goes on vaginally than a simple ultrasound.
Depending on the state, rape is usually legally defined as the commission of unlawful sexual intercourse or unlawful sexual intrusion. If these laws go into effect, women will not be able to obtain a legal abortion without having the transvaginal ultrasound done so she is being forced by the state to undergo an intrusive ultrasound to satisfy some legislator's need to shame her about what is her legal right. Read the law....the woman can avert her eyes from the screen but she cannot refuse the ultrasound if she wants an abortion.
The point is the state has no right to push itself into the room and make a doctor do something that the woman has no say over as a governmental hoop to jump through in order to obtain a legal procedure...that is wrong.
Why doesn't the state have a right to make their own laws? What part of the Constitution is that from? Is that like saying New York State had no right to legalize abortion back in 1970?
Just because you don't like the idea, doesn't make it wrong. Conversely, just because I like the idea doesn't make it right, either. I have a habit of looking to the Constitution first. Amendment X probably covers this. If not, I'm sure it'll be taken to the courts.
or at the time a fetus has a heart beat or when a child is born. The bottom line
for me is it's my body I get to decide. The female has always been the incubator
and source of families. At this point only women carry a child to birth. It is the
woman who decides when and if that egg is fertilized. It amounts to rape when
an ultrasound is done internally because that procedure is invasive. And to use
an ultrasound to intimidate a woman, a procedure that might not be viewed as necessary
by her doctor, and ordered by a state law, is in my opinion non-Constitutional. Everyone
is entitled to their opinion, they are just not entitled to make these kinds of decisions
for me.
But the most disturbing aspect of these laws is that in the vast majority of abortions, which occur far too early in pregnancy for an external ("jelly on the belly") ultrasound to produce an image, the ultrasound must be transvaginal -- i.e., a long wand-like ultrasound probe must be inserted deep into the woman's vagina. This is, quite simply, state-sponsored rape. Even the FBI recognized last year, as most states did long ago, that vaginal penetration without a woman's consent is rape.
It is cruel and nasty.
Totally unnecessary.
No doubt about it!
fanned, already a fan
And there is no "forced insertion of a foreign object." If a woman wants an abortion, she'll consent to the ultrasound. No one is going to tie her down, hold her at knife or gunpoint. That, plus the fact that an ultrasound is often routine, regardless. (http://www.ipas.org/Library/Other/Early_abortion_services_in_the_United_States_A_provider_survey.pdf) To add to that, if a woman requires a surgical abortion she'll have a lot more inserting going on.
"http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/13347"
http://www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/spib_RFU.pdf