Posted on 02/20/2012 9:39:24 AM PST by Qbert
The Slate piece that prompted this controversy is a few days old, but the conservative backlash to it is just picking up steam. Thursday, Supreme Court reporter Dahlia Lithwick (whose name I’ve always envied!) penned a preposterous attack on a proposed law in Virginia that would require women to have an ultrasound before they would be allowed to have an abortion. Ms. Lithwick is convinced – convinced – that an ultrasound amounts to rape. She writes:
Because the great majority of abortions occur during the first 12 weeks, that means most women will be forced to have a transvaginal procedure, in which a probe is inserted into the vagina, and then moved around until an ultrasound image is produced. Since a proposed amendment to the bill—a provision that would have had the patient consent to this bodily intrusion or allowed the physician to opt not to do the vaginal ultrasound—failed on 64-34 vote, the law provides that women seeking an abortion in Virginia will be forcibly penetrated for no medical reason. I am not the first person to note that under any other set of facts, that would constitute rape under state law.
Let’s suppose for a second that a transvaginal ultrasound to which women have not consented is rape. Unfortunately for Ms. Lithwick, she’s still flat-out wrong about the law. Why? She vastly overstates the probability that “most women will be forced to have a transvaginal procedure.” Dana Loesch links to a piece at Red State that sets the record straight:
So does Virginia’s law require some foreign object to be “inserted into the vagina, and then moved around”? The answer is obviously no. The law doesn’t specify what kind of ultrasound must be used, rather it clearly states that the sonogram “shall be made pursuant to standard medical practice in the community.” This, obviously, is going to be a function of whatever device Dr. Mengele has at his disposal in the abortion facility.Abdominal and transvaginal ultrasounds are both effective at early stages of pregnancy. This fact is acknowledged in this “continuing medical education” module produced by the National Abortion Foundation (tag line: “A Provider’s Guide to Medical Abortion”):
“Transabdominal ultrasound cannot reliably diagnose pregnancies that are < 6 weeks’ gestation. Transvaginal ultrasound, by contrast, can detect pregnancies earlier, at approximately 4 ½ to 5 weeks’ gestation. Prompt diagnosis made possible by TVU can, therefore, result in earlier treatment.”
So, yes, transvaginal is more reliable for detecting pregnancies for a period of about seven days. Please note the Orwellian use of the word “treatment” for “killing of the baby.” How does this require a woman to have a transvaginal ultrasound? Short answer: it doesn’t.
OK, so Lithwick’s wrong about the law. Is she right about what constitutes rape? Would we say that when a women consents to it, an ultrasound is in any way sexual? I’m inclined to agree with Commentary’s Alana Goodman:
Comparing the ultrasound proposal to forcible rape is – to be kind – totally absurd. But [Slate's] not the only outlet engaging in this. Feministe is calling it the “Virginia Rape Law,” and Washington Monthly described it as the “Ritual Humiliation Bill.”Then there’s Joy Behar, who likened it to Taliban law on “The View”: “It’s like, what are we? What is this, the Taliban now? What are we, in Afghanistan? Where are we exactly in this country?”
The comparisons aren’t just needlessly inflammatory, they also dilute the seriousness of rape.
That last sentence is the linchpin: To equate a medical procedure that carries no real risk of negative consequences — like emotional trauma or STDs — with rape, which does carry such consequences, does an enormous injustice to true rape victims. Incidentally, the Virginia law aims to ensure women have as much information as possible before they decide to undergo another medical procedure that does carry an enormous risk of negative consequences — including emotional trauma.
As Goodman writes, sound reasons to oppose the Virginia law — or, at least, to think seriously about it — certainly exist, but the argument that an ultrasound is somehow rape is just not one of them.
So allowing a woman to have the most information about what is going to happen to her during a medical procedure is “rape”? For people who believe in “choice”, they sure don’t think that an informed choice is a good one.
Wow, women who will let just about anything else be inserted up into them now balk against a small probe?
However, I wonder they can’t they just do typical non-invasive ultrasounds?
At any rate, I find it a waste of taxpayer dollars. These demonettes are going to kill their kids no matter what you tell or show them. They know damn well what they’re doing. Why show them, and then sit back and watch while they kill their children anyway. This just makes them more defiant over it.
"So allowing a woman to have the most information about what is going to happen to her during a medical procedure is “rape”? For people who believe in “choice”, they sure don’t think that an informed choice is a good one."
Yep. Not to mention that they pride themselves on supposedly being the "Party of Science"...
I don’t agree... it seems that the more aware a person is as to exactly what is happening, the less likely they are to abort. I’m sure a certain percentage will still murder her own child, but I’m even more certain that another percentage will change her mind. And even one child saved is worth the cost.
She is nuts.That type of ultra sound is only used in high risk pregnancies in the very first few weeks.After about the time the woman would miss her first period they are no longer used except again in high risk and if they can’t find the baby as happens sometimes with a molar pregnancy or Blighted Ovum.
The left doesn't want people identified. They prefer the cover of anonymity for their crimes.
Because ever since Roe v. Wade, the feminists have been telling women that an embryo is just a clump of cells, that until the second trimester, the fetus is totally unconscious.
I wonder if she gets upset about the Obama policy that gave me a nearly transvaginal procedure at the Tampa Int’l airport from the TSA. The Fascist Left is mentally warped.
If they are against the transvaginal ultrasounds, they need to start squawking about PAP tests!
Behar, in an almost unique instance of honesty out of a leftist, stated the honest reason that they are outraged by this requirement -
it’s making someone face something they’ve already decided they don’t want to have to deal with.
Left unstated was the “issue” that they don’t want to deal with - the humanity of the “fetus” and the subsequent acknowledgement that terminating it is murder.
The abortion issue is 1% about future abortions
and 99% about not pointing out to those that have had abortions that they murdered a baby.
Those seeking an abortion should be required to have a valid ‘Member of Democratic Party’ card, even if it was just issued that morning.
This is conservatism? If this isn’t Big Government, what the heck is????
Maybe we can just pretend that the ultrasound is the DUE PROCESS that must happen before the baby is deprived of his life. How about that?
Conservatism is about individual rights. You know the ones outlined in the Constitution; Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We are doing all we can to PROTECT the right of LIFE of an unborn child. Sorry if you have to have an ultrasound before you kill your baby.
We can’t overturn Roe VS. Wade right this second but we can have informed consent. Don’t believe the left. An abdominal ultrasound is all that will be needed. She will hear the heartbeat and she will know.
A woman should know that she has been lied to her entire life before she takes the life of her unborn child. I have friends that believed the lie that there was nothing there but a clump of cells. When they found out the truth they spiraled out of control. Better to be informed before hand and live with the consequences of your INFORMED decisions.
The whole issue here is to maintain the ability to deny the fact that the “fetus” IS a “life”.
And the issue is being driven not so much by those who think they might “need” an abortion in the future as it is driven by those that have had an abortion and seek to continue to deny the truth of what they did.
Oh. The famous liberal fall back position. It’s for the children!!!!!
For this same reason a school official can search through a child’s lunch box, or Michele Obama can dictate carrots and push-ups and a bureaucrat forces someone to buy insurance.....
As long as you say its for the children everything is ok.
“Maybe we can just pretend that the ultrasound is the DUE PROCESS “ You have to do a whole lot of pretending to turn this into small government conservatism. Liberals demand that we pay to provided free care, including prenatal care and we, with good reason, object.
You demand that this sort of care be forced on a woman without her consent and you want to call it conservative- no conservatism I’ve ever heard of.
Perhaps the problem comes from your not having a very good handle on the US Constitution. TO begin with “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution.
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