If you find yourself pregnant when you don’t want to be and live in the state of Virginia, a proposed bill will mean that you will need to have an ultrasound before you undergo a termination. The purported purpose of this is to determine foetal age and make sure that the woman terminating the pregnancy can be “fully” informed before making any decision.
In the United States, most (91.5%) abortions carried out are done during the first twelve weeks of a pregnancy, when the standard ultrasound approach of running a wand around the lower abdominal area of the body is not effective.
The trans-vaginal route means that an ultrasound wand in the shape of a dildo is inserted into the woman’s vagina; this ensures that a clearer picture can be attained than would be found externally. In the bill, it is proposed that the woman will be asked to look at a monitor displaying the foetus and also asked to listen to the heartbeat of the foetus, and whether or not she looks and listens will be recorded in her medical notes. Again, this is to ensure that the woman makes an “informed” decision.
So, what’s the medical need for the ultrasound before the termination?
There isn’t one.
What’s the medical need for the doctor to “obtain written certification from the woman that the opportunity was offered and whether the woman availed herself of the opportunity to see the ultrasound image or hear the foetal heartbeat”?
There is no medical need.
If I seek an abortion, being in an abortion clinic is a pretty clear sign that I know what i’m there to get. It’s not like I could have blundered into the clinic after mistaking it for oh, I dunno, a nail salon?
If I consent to an abortion, it’s because the medical need is to remove something that’s not entirely my own DNA, and I understand that as part of the abortion procedure i’ll need to take medication or have the contents of my uterus sucked and/or scraped out to remove the “products of conception” as they are so delightfully called. There is a need for all of those things, there is a *medical* need.
Just because I consented to being penetrated before does not mean that I give consent for anything and everything else to happen. I consent to sex, I consent to an abortion, I am informed as to what is involved. I do not consent to anything crossing my bodily integrity when it does not serve a purpose; approved purposes include for personal (pleasure) or medical needs.
*Anything* crossing my bodily integrity needs my consent. Specificity is required. If there is no consent, then that’s rape.
How about when the doctor is carrying out a prostate examination he or she reaches around, grabs the man’s cock and masturbates him. That would be wrong, right, because it’s a violation of bodily integrity and not medically necessary…? Nooooooo…….?
The United States of America. Land of the free.
Wikipedia – Sic semper tyrannis
Slate – Virginia’s Proposed Ultrasound Law Is an Abomination Dahlia Lithwick
Guttmacher Institute – excellent resource on sexual health in the US.
