Denialism

Pennsylvania next in line to require transvaginal U/S prior to abortion

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by

MarkH
in

Pennsylvania is poised to enact a ultrasound bill even more stringent than Virginia’s failed bill.

Even as the transvaginal ultrasound bill in Virginia was causing national outrage, Pennsylvania conservatives were quietly pushing a even more restrictive abortion bill. The legislation is designed with so many difficult and differing restrictions that long-time abortion policy analyst Elizabeth Nash at the Guttmacher Institute told Raw Story, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
In addition to mandating the much-maligned transvaginal ultrasound requirements since rejected by the state of Virginia, Pennsylvania legislators proposed strongly encouraging women to view and listen to the ultrasounds, forcing technicians to give the women personalized copies of the results and mandating how long before any abortion the ultrasound much be preformed — and that’s just for starters.
That last requirement has already been passed and struck down in Louisiana, partially over concerns of patients’ privacy and potential risks for women in abusive relationships, Nash said.
“This bill definitely suffers the legislators-playing-doctor problem. … There are a number of requirements in this bill that are medically unnecessary,” Nash said, pointing out that so many requirements packed into the 22-page bill could make it logistically difficult for abortion providers to comply with them. “This bill is something that would be unacceptable to most women seeking an abortion.”

You know how I feel about this. Legislating unnecessary medical procedures is unethical and unlawful, and real Republicans don’t believe government should legislate medical decisions. Hopefully this bill will suffer a similar fate.

Comments

6 responses to “Pennsylvania next in line to require transvaginal U/S prior to abortion”

  1. NANCY KNOBLAUCH

    The Pennsylvania government has no right to mandate an invasion of any woman’s body. They have no right to know who is having an abortion, nor the reason. Is this America’s version of the Taliban? Is our government on the march toward government control over individual liberties? These people cannot be trusted and need to be removed from office.

    Reply
  2. Kagehi

    I would almost like to see this bill pass some place, and watch the number of lawsuits involving, “Forced rape by an object, under government mandate.”, start cropping up… I mean, bloody hell, its like watching an episode of one of those shows a while back, where someone “intentionally” visited a new gynecologist, in order that they actually had one witness willing to go into court to say, “He raped me.”, due to all the rest of them refusing to testify to it happening.

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  3. Igor

    What an abhorrent and wasteful legislation. The u/s is necessary for what legitimate or even sane purpose? I doubt it’s confirm the pregnancy in order to avoid unnecessary abortions.
    A shameless ploy to delay female access to healthcare and to engage in emotional duress on the patient calls for a similar tactic. For each refused abortion a full audit of the father’s finances should be performed to ensure present solvency in caring for the child. I suppose a VD testing via urethral insertion is out of the question?

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  4. jfrate

    I don’t think these transvag ultrasounds are ‘good enough’. I think if a woman wants an abortion, she should first remodel one of the rooms in her house, paint it blue or pink, buy a crib, buy baby pyjamas, buy a bottle, buy some kids toys, buy a pack of diapers, put up a crochet on the wall that says ‘welcome to the room of ____’, select a male and female name for her fetus, then, and ONLY THEN, after a woman has been made to suffer such an emotional roller coaster, can the heartless harpee, oops i mean patient, request an abortion.

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  5. Igor

    Surely she should at least wait till the baby starts kicking. If that won’t convince her to spare an innocent life, actually giving birth and finally hearing the words “mama” should do the trick. It might be a little late then, but I’m confident that after all that only a succubus would regret not aborting.
    Wouldn’t it be cheaper to require three more peeing tests and a stock recordings of an ultrasound? Mandating an ultrasound each time can be so costly in the long run.

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  6. Calli Arcale

    I also have to wonder about the cost side of this. If a woman had sex three weeks ago and now has a positive pregnancy test, there won’t be a damn thing for the ultrasound to look at it — but this is a great time for pharmaceutical abortion. There is no value to the ultrasound (which is going to be paid for by whom?). It won’t even help to convince women not to abort, IMHO — it’ll just be an obstacle to doing it safely because it’ll make it cost more. (What’s next, taxing abortions to try and reduce them? I’d almost expect the right to leap to that, except that then they’d have to admit they’re profiting from abortion.)
    So here is something which doesn’t help medical, doesn’t advance the pro-life cause, and will cost money during a recession. The only possible value is for politicians to be seen to be Doing Something About Abortion in an election year. Shameful.

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