According to various news outlets, "In the 'Doonesbury' strip, a woman goes to a Texas clinic to have the procedure and is forced to get a sonogram...A state legislator asks if she has been at the clinic before and, when she says she had been to get contraceptives, he replies: 'Do your parents know you're a slut?' Later, she says she does not want an intrusive vaginal examination but is told by a nurse: 'The male Republicans who run Texas require that all abortion seekers be examined with a 10-inch shaming wand.' The nurse adds: 'By the authority invested in me by the GOP base, I thee rape.' The cartoon ends with the woman going home to wait 24 hours before having the abortion, as the Texas law requires..."
The "intrusive vaginal examination" as rape line has been parroted by liberals for weeks now. For example, on Feb. 20 AJC columnist Jay Bookman wrote, "In Virginia, the Republican-dominated state legislature is close to enacting a law that would require women seeking abortions to undergo ultrasounds to determine the gestational age of the fetus...such tests can be conducted only through “transvaginal ultrasounds” performed with the instrument above.
"Put candidly and clinically, the instrument must be inserted deep into a woman’s vagina and then manipulated until it produces a clear image. Versions of the bill have passed both the House and Senate by overwhelming margins (63-36 in the House; 28-11 in the Senate). Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican often mentioned as a potential vice presidential nominee, has said he would sign the bill into law.
"Think about that: As a condition of exercising her constitutional right to choose, a woman in Virginia must accept a government-mandated physical probe into her body, a probe that serves no medical function whatsoever." (Though Bookman himself didn't specifically mention rape, plenty of his liberal lackeys who post on his blog took his cue.)
As I noted then, "But while exercising her 'constitutional right to choose,' a woman who is in the 1st trimester of her pregnancy who goes to an abortion clinic to kill her child, will have an ultrasound performed as part of her abortion procedure! (They just don’t show it to her, but the VA law requires that the woman be shown the ultrasound). Her cervix is then dilated by multiple thrusts of instruments of gradually increasing size. She then will have a curette (a scraping device) inserted into her uterus and the baby, along with the placenta, will be scraped out into a bowl. The woman might also have a suction device inserted into her uterus to suck out the baby and other contents."
In other words, the idea that the ultrasound is "rape" or even "intrusive" is completely bogus. Virtually EVERY abortion procedure ALREADY requires an ultrasound. As Commentary's Alana Goodman noted, "Adrienne Schreiber, an official at Planned Parenthood’s Washington, D.C., regional office [noted] 'To confirm the gestational age of the pregnancy, before any procedure is done, you do an ultrasound.' According to Schreiber, Planned Parenthood does require women to give signed consent for abortion procedures, including the ultrasound. But if the women won’t consent to the ultrasound, the abortion cannot take place, according to the group’s national standards. '...If she’s uncomfortable with a transvaginal ultrasound, then she’s not going to be comfortable with an equally invasive abortion procedure,' Schreiber told me."
Trudeau described Republican state moves on women's healthcare as "appalling" and "insane." What is truly "appalling" is the continued denial of liberals that what resides inside a woman's womb in another human being. Trudeau added that he thought the issue of reproductive freedom had been settled with the 1973 ruling Roe v Wade. In other words, if it's legal, it's okay, right? Well the ultrasound prior to abortion procedure is now legal in TX and VA, so it must be okay.
Copyright 2012, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com
I like the new blog!!!
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