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You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Women's Rights / Vagina Outrage / What Pro-Life Means In Virginny

What Pro-Life Means In Virginny

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Again, so we are clear:

The ultrasound legislation would require women to undergo a test to determine the gestation age of the fetus, hear the heartbeat and be given an opportunity to see the images.

A woman who refuses to look at the ultrasound would have to sign a statement, which along with a print of the image would become part of her medical file.

LOOK AT THE ULTRASOUND YOU SLUT OR THIS IS GOING ON YOUR PERMANENT RECORD.

Reader Interactions

93Comments

  6. 6.

    BGinCHI

    But high gas prices. And Billy Graham’s fuckhead son. And both sides do it.

    When will the fucking MSM bring the hammer to this shit. Yeah, I know. Half past never.

  7. 7.

    cathyx

    You see this microscopic speck on the ultrasound? That’s what you want to get rid of. Don’t you feel guilty?

  9. 9.

    Mino

    Versions of this bill already have been passed in several states!! Where was the fucking national press??

  11. 11.

    GregB

    But Bob McDonnell is so reasonable and the perfect template for the GOP to reclaim their thousand year reign over the Christian Confederacy of Jesus-topia.

  16. 16.

    jonas

    The reason the authors of the bill demanded the transvaginal ultrasound is that the vast majority of abortions are performed when the fetus is literally too small for a regular ultrasound to render a clear image of — so the slut shaming wouldn’t be as effective.

  17. 17.

    PurpleGirl

    Sorry, I couldn’t help it but I laughed at that picture.

    It’s a serious subject, and I know in A Clockwork Orange, it’s serious too, but the picture of the eyes… can’t help it, I laughed.

    Did anybody else laugh?

  20. 20.

    danimal

    I think the right strategy to fight these is legislative mockery. Anal probes and prostate exams for boner pill prescriptions, that sort of thing. It garners more attention from old, white men than wimmin complainin’ about exams on their ladybits. Just imagine if one of the boner pill prescription amendments actually passed.

    (hope I avoided moderation hell…FYWP)

    ETA: Re-reading my comment, I’ll just say it isn’t just old, white men. Men of color can be just as stupid on this issue.

  21. 21.

    cmorenc

    If the image becomes a permanent part of a patient’s general medical file, this amounts to a permanent branding of the woman with a scarlet ‘A’ with any other medical providers or hospitals she may need to seek services from. In the rapidly transitioning world of medical records to all-digital, near-electronically transportable format over high-speed networks, this means that absent the patient having some sort of right to assert selective privacy over this part of her record, this image will pop up when her records are transmitted to ANY other provider prurient enough to check whether the patient’s file contains this type of image. I’m willing to bet the bill’s sponsors have included NO provision giving the patient the right to shield this image or even the fact of its existence from providers.

    Not only that, but suppose a woman has an abortion in Virginia and later needs her medical records electronically transferred to a state with protection of the confidentiality of any health care records relating to an abortion. What then?

    There is NO valid purpose behind this requirement of making this image a PERMANENT part of a woman’s record other than to brand her.

  24. 24.

    Mark S.

    The Tea Party is just interested in small government and fiscally conservative policies. Social issues like abortion, race, immigration, etc. are not really on their radar.
    /villager

  27. 27.

    cathyx

    @danimal: I’m reposting my comment because I doubt it will get out of moderation.

    I say if a man wants a prescription for the little blue pill, he should have to prove he needs it.

  29. 29.

    El Tiburon

    It is really an amazing strategy by these extremists.

    Put into play the most outlandish piece of dog-poo imaginable. Watch Rational USA get all up in arms and come together (yet again) to beat it back.

    Rational USA breaths a sigh of relief on a Hard Fought Victory! and back slaps all around. Extremists then carry on with other less extreme methods of outlawing abortion without really outlawing abortion and Rational USA doesn’t notice as much. “Hey, sure, South Carolina only allows abortion on the last Tuesday of every odd month for 10 minutes, but at least they ain’t sticking a tube up her vajayjay!”

  30. 30.

    Poopyman

    And now for an opposing point of view …. the French!

    A lawyer for Mr. Strauss-Kahn appeared to confirm that he had attended the events, saying that his client would not have been aware if the women who entertained him were prostitutes.
    “He could easily not have known, because as you can imagine, at these kinds of parties you’re not always dressed, and I challenge you to distinguish a naked prostitute from any other naked woman,” the lawyer, Henri Leclerc, told a French radio station, Europe 1, in December.

    That this story is running in the news at the same time tells me that the universe’s sense of irony is strong.

  31. 31.

    beltane

    Since when have medical records been used for the purpose of enforcing the religious beliefs of state legislators? Would it be OK if an atheist doctor wrote a notation on a patient’s permanent record saying “Christian. Not competent to give medical consent”

  32. 32.

    Cluttered Mind

    @cathyx: Ideally to the entire female hospital staff at once, at which point they are permitted to point and laugh. If they have a problem with this, maybe they should rethink their views on privacy.

  34. 34.

    Poopyman

    @cathyx: “Need” in this case being that it is only to be used for baby makin’, and he has to prove via financial statements that he’s able to provide for it, and under threat of imprisonment is forced to hang around until said baby reaches 18.

  35. 35.

    Rafer Janders

    @Poopyman:

    “He could easily not have known, because as you can imagine, at these kinds of parties you’re not always dressed, and I challenge you to distinguish a naked prostitute from any other naked woman,” the lawyer, Henri Leclerc, told a French radio station, Europe 1, in December.

    Challenge…accepted!

  37. 37.

    J.D. Rhoades

    as you can imagine, at these kinds of parties you’re not always dressed, and I challenge you to distinguish a naked prostitute from any other naked woman,”

    Priceless.

    “You’re a hooker? Jesus, I forgot! I just thought I was doing GREAT with you!”

  38. 38.

    beltane

    @cathyx: Such proof shall consist of an examination before a panel of stern, ruler wielding matrons.

    The female “patron” of this bill only gave birth to three children. One can only assume her method of family planning was to stand in her bedroom with an aspirin between her knees while her husband was out having sex with hookers. That is, after all, the Republican way.

  40. 40.

    makewi

    As opposed to when planned parenthood requires it as part of their process and the woman refuses – she simply isn’t given an abortion.

  41. 41.

    Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity

    Did anybody else laugh?

    @PurpleGirl: Having had my eyes clipped open for surgery, no, I did not. It’s pretty unpleasant.

  43. 43.

    makewi

    OTOH, why is this a problem? We’re told time and again by you jokers that the fetus isn’t a life. Sop what’s the issue at being forced to look at the tapeworm/mass of tissues/anything other than something that will become a human baby?

    I think what really makes you mad about this is how it forces you to confront your historical lies on this subject.

  49. 49.

    Culture of Truth

    If the idea here is to make women realize there’s a real live baby in there, why not require every legislator to inform every child in person why they voted for a benefit cut that affects them.

  57. 57.

    Phoenix_rising

    Anyone here HAD a TV ultrasound? I have, and two points:

    1) This medically necessary procedure was to determine whether the ovary with the cyst in it was about to rupture, or just hurt worse than a busted appendix. (Seriously, I’ve had field surgery for a closed chest wound and it hurt less than the f-ing ovary did.) It was deeply invasive and also hurt. (I think. I was barely conscious and cursing with such creativity that EMTs from 3 jurisdictions came to listen, I’m told.)

    2) The idiot ultrasound tech couldn’t find my goddam ovary, which for reference is quite a bit larger than a fetus at 10 weeks gestation.

    So what I’m wondering is, what happens when the ultrasound image doesn’t show the Gerber baby? Or indeed anything at all? Does this bill contemplate the prospect that the image is inconclusive, or discourage the patient from having the abortion if the tech can’t find the fetus, or it this just more info about how women’s bodies really work that is too complex for the slut-shamers?

  59. 59.

    Beauzeaux

    I’ve had an abortion. There’s no way an ultrasound or heartbeat or any other bullshit would have stopped me. All I wanted at the time was to be NOT PREGNANT.
    Afterwards, all I felt was relief. I’ve never regreted it for an instant. I assume there are lots of women for whom abortion is a wrenching decision, but I felt no attachment to a clump of cells that was threatening to ruin my life.
    (By the way, it was 1965 and illegal and I knew I was taking a big risk but all I wanted at the time was to be NOT PREGNANT.)

  60. 60.

    FlipYrWhig

    @makewi: Strangely enough, commanding a woman to take a good look at the contents of the inside of her colon before having a surgical procedure would _also_ be offensive. “Forced to look at” is a problem regardless of the ontological status of the thing you’re being forced to look at. Really not that hard to figure out.

  62. 62.

    RD

    @makewi:

    You mean the individual mandate first proposed by Republicans to solve the “free rider” problem?

    As far as light bulbs, good riddance to Thomas Edison.

  63. 63.

    scav

    makewi’s inner toddler with its clenched little fists pounding and repetitive eye-scrunched-shut bawling is pretty damn cute in a twisted way. Least it’s putting on a pretty good floor show, while still managing to be the poster child of the true petty vindictive illogical meanness of certain forms of religion.

  64. 64.

    makewi

    @scav:

    This is rich coming from the side which solidly refuses to acknowledge that this practice is already in place in parenthood, does not specify a type of ultrasound, and who will not under any circumstances allow the idea to be spoken that an abortion ends a human life.

  65. 65.

    makewi

    @RD:

    So individual freedom is fine, so long as you agree with it. Nice.

    It’s almost funny how you never recognize your own tyrannies.

  66. 66.

    BenA

    The thing that’s so stupid about this whole thing is that people like makewi and his delusional and simple minded cohorts think that woman who have an abortion are being flippant about the whole thing… that they haven’t really considered the ramifications of what they are doing and if only the realized that it was a potential life they had inside them that their feministic cold hearts would suddenly thaw like the fucking Grinch in a Dr. Seuss story and they’d henceforth spew out little babies like a goddamn rabbit. It’s insulting to women… these dim assholes think so little of women that they all assume the woman doesn’t understand what’s happening… or that if they “really stopped and thought about it” they would change their minds…. forgetting the fact that there is statistical evidence that these ultrasounds have zero effect in preventing an abortion. The fact is that the person seeking the abortion in most cases is making and informed and rational decision.

    It’s the dumbest and most child-like rational for a law…. of course that describes most of the idiotic premises the right comes up with. Most of their policy is based on fucking fairy tales told to them by the Coors family, Big Oil, and Televangelists.

  67. 67.

    scav

    @makewi: your non sequiturs have wings that can be seen from Sarah Palin’s porch. You really should be framed and hung in either a museum, art gallery or possibly a zoo.

  68. 68.

    SIA

    I don’t think these people should make more babies

    A new survey from Public Policy Polling also showed strong support for the White House policy. Sixty-seven percent of those polled said all women should have the same access to healthcare, regardless of their employers’ religious beliefs, while 27 percent said employers should be able to deny certain benefits because of their religious convictions.

  69. 69.

    debbie

    A better use for the apparatus in that photo would be to force conservatives to read the Constitution for the real definition of religious liberty.

  71. 71.

    trollhattan

    @RD:

    What will you do when Rick Romney loses? Take up arms?

    Vigorous backrubs from veritas are first on the agenda.

  72. 72.

    makewi

    @SIA:

    Typical. You delude yourselves by hiding in language. “Woman should have the same access to health care.” It’s no wonder you end up so shocked when things don’t go your way.

  73. 73.

    Birthmarker

    @Beauzeaux: This is one of the biggest myths perpetrated by the Right to Lifers. That one will be wracked with lifetime guilt.

    Then get breast cancer.

  75. 75.

    Brachiator

    @makewi:

    OTOH, why is this a problem? We’re told time and again by you jokers that the fetus isn’t a life. Sop what’s the issue at being forced to look at the tapeworm/mass of tissues/anything other than something that will become a human baby?

    Let’s see, now. By your own admission, “forced to look.”

    And you fools have the fucking nerve to talk about “liberty?”

  78. 78.

    me too,also

    @Beauzeaux: I have had 2…two…abortions. the first in NYC because it was not legal here in MN.
    the next one was here in MN. I was in menapause…..not having a period in over a year….and got preggers. went to my obgyn and she asked what I was going to do. I said…have an abortion. she cheered.
    no regrets. EVER.

  79. 79.

    Anonymous for this comment

    I had an abortion almost three years ago now. I knew I was pregnant really early, so I was about 5 weeks (gestational – about 3 weeks post-fertilization) when I went in. The Planned Parenthood where I went did prefer to have an ultrasound. They tried the trans-abdominal one, but I was so early they couldn’t see anything at all. They asked if I was willing to have the TVU. Honestly,it didn’t bother me that much, although I’d gotten over my discomfort at having medical people looking at my cooter when I had cervical dysplasia. I don’t know what the alternative was if I didn’t want to; I’m assuming they would have re-scheduled me for later when the embryo would be bigger. They asked if I wanted to see the ultrasound. I’ve always been strongly pro-choice, but I was struggling with the decision more than I thought I would even though it just wasn’t a possibility for a lot of reasons. I felt like I wouldn’t be able to look at myself in the mirror if I didn’t confront it, so I said yes. When she turned the monitor to me, the truth is that I saw … darker gray fuzzy stuff with some lighter gray fuzzy stuff. I had to ask where it was, and she pointed out where the sac, yolk, and embryo were. I asked about a heartbeat, and she said she couldn’t see one yet. The truth is that the ultrasound made me feel better; there was nothing there that looked like a person in any way. It wasn’t even the size of a kidney bean. I’m not alone; I saw something later that given a choice 70-some percent of women look, and eighty percent of them feel better after viewing the ultrasound. Pro-life people so often and so consistently lie about the stages of fetal development and when women get abortions that I don’t think they’re even aware that an ultrasound just doesn’t show much at that stage. I’ve been chuckling to myself all week; they think that they’re forcing women to do something that is going to make them feel even worse than they do already, when in fact, most women will actually feel better about the whole thing. Having said that; I still think this is an appalling law. Doctors and professional bodies should be the ones to set standards of care, and in consultation with their patients, determine how care should be delivered. The state has no business getting involved in telling doctors how to practice medicine beyond regulations to ensure safety. No woman should be forced or guilt-tripped into looking at an ultrasound if she doesn’t want to.

  82. 82.

    pseudonymous in nc

    In the spirit of wakimaki’s trolling, I demand that every establishment that serves meat must show video from slaughterhouses on an endless, extremely loud loop.

  84. 84.

    Anonymous for this comment

    @PurpleGirl:

    Absolutely. PP was fantastic. The informed consent was the best I’ve ever seen, and I’ve had other surgeries so I have a basis for comparison. They were so respectful, and it was so obvious the whole time that everything was geared towards my physical and emotional well-being.

    That’s why this law is so offensive to me. PP made sure that everything that happened to me that day was a choice, as it should be. Coercion is something else entirely.

  85. 85.

    Anonymous for this comment

    Oh sorry, one last thing about this law. The ultrasound thing sucks, but there’s another shitty provision. If you live less than a 100 miles from the clinic you have to wait 24 hours in between the ultrasound and the abortion. If over 100 miles you have to wait at least 2 hours in between. Now it sucks for the second group, but what if you’re right at the cut-off? That’s probably two hours of driving each way for two days. It’s more if you rely on public transportation. Put in the time at the clinic, and that’s two full days off work, often for women who have no paid sick leave. Not acceptable.

  87. 87.

    Mnemosyne

    I do love how makewi is convinced that the government mandating that you put a probe up your vagina is exactly the same thing as making you switch your lightbulbs.

    Is she confused about where those lightbulbs are going to be installed? I put mine into my lamps, but perhaps she’s been putting them elsewhere.

  88. 88.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @SIA:

    You know what? At this point, I just think the polling organizations are fucking with us on that 27%. No way it’s coincidental that we see that number again and again.

  90. 90.

    Mnemosyne

    Though, on a more serious note, makewi’s kind of reasoning is what comes from the right insisting that healthcare is a consumer good, and choosing a cancer treatment is exactly like choosing a light bulb. If you don’t have the money to afford light bulbs, you go without, and people like makewi apply the same reasoning to cancer treatment — if you can’t afford it, too bad, so sad, should have saved up your money to get it.

    To makewi, there’s no difference between getting healthcare and buying a car. People who can afford it should get it, and people who can’t afford it should suck it up and not get cancer.

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