The cardinal rule of a profitable abortion business is, “No babies!” Don’t let pregnant women bring babies into the waiting room (they remind the abortion-bound women of the alternative to aborting). Don’t refer to what the woman’s carrying as a baby (say instead “contents of the uterus,” “products of conception,” “clump of cells,” “just tissue,” etc.). And whatever else you do, don’t let her see the baby on the ultrasound! Because if she does, she may change her mind and walk out.
Unsurprisingly, then, abortion apologists have been up in arms over the recent spate of bills in various states that would require abortionists actually to show the pregnant woman just what is moving and growing inside her. The abortion reps act as if the survival of the abortion industry is at stake — and they may well be right.
The abortion lobby, however, faces a serious public-relations problem. If it says, “We want to keep the customer in ignorance because more information will damage sales,” even their legislative friends are likely to desert them. Likewise, the slogan “Doctor knows best” runs smack dab into the normal aversion of the left to paternalism. And opposing a consumer-protection disclosure law for women considering abortion but supporting one for, say, car purchases, looks impossibly unprincipled. Can you imagine the folks on The View agreeing that it insults the intelligence of car buyers to require that they be provided with odometer disclosures?
Ah, but the abortion promoters are savvy. They have found the recipe for actually provoking outrage against giving pregnant women potentially deal-breaking information. The mantra? Physical invasion! An ultrasound takes information from a woman’s own body (as if it were some kind of exotic strip search, and as if it were not the case that every physician takes information from the patient’s “own body”)! Worse still, some ultrasound methods — namely, transvaginal ultrasounds — actually require penetration of a woman’s private parts! This is tantamount to rape! Who could favor such extreme practices?
Well, abortionists, for one. It turns out that upwards of 80 percent of abortion providers (at least according to a study of abortion providers published in the journal Contraception in 2003, see Janie Benson et al., “Early abortion services in the United States: a provider survey,” 67 Contraception 287, 289, 291 (2003), available here) always do transvaginal ultrasounds, both for surgical and drug-induced early abortions. They presumably have medical reasons for doing this — to determine gestational age, make sure the baby is in the womb and not ectopic, confirm the number of babies and their size, etc. Are NARAL, NOW, and Planned Parenthood raging against this apparently very common practice?
Creating a fuss over this invasion makes great political sense for the abortion industry. But creating this fuss is also immensely hypocritical, as the message is, “It’s okay for abortionists to require their patients to undergo transvaginal ultrasounds as part of getting an abortion, but not for the state to require the same thing.” The invasion is the same. (In fact, if the abortionist goes on to do a surgical abortion, the ultimate physical intrusion is even greater.) The crucial difference, however, remains unspoken: “The abortionists will not let the woman see what he sees. The state, however, will require us to show her.” That, my friends, is what is really at stake. “No babies!”
— Walter M. Weber is Senior Litigation Counsel for the American Center for Law & Justice.
"[T]he normal aversion of the left to paternalism."
Errr . . . what?!?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseInterestingly, most women who have abortions know what's in there, because they've done this before. Here's a link: External Link
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseQuite the article. It reminds me of the op-ed the NYT ran a year or two ago about the woman who had one or two of her triplets aborted in the womb because she didn't want to have to move from Manhattan and she wouldn't enjoying having to shop at Costco.
This article adds the further rationalization that these woman decided to kill their next child because that was in the interest of the previous child. Imagine learning at some point in your life that the reason your mother decided to terminate your brother or sister was because of you!
The one bit of good news in the article is that even these women understand what they are doing is morally wrong, which is why they naturally wont' return to the same OB/GYN. I'm not sure if the writer is trying to advocate against that or not, but it being Slate, I guess she thinks things would be better if women were more comfortable with aborting their own children.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseInterestingly, most people who post articles with their comments link to articles that undermine their arguments.
Yours is no exception.
In fact, it takes the cake, as that article is the most persuasive for the pro-life cause.
So, merci buckups for posting it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThanks for pointing out that this isn't about the life or health of the mother at all - it's entirely about forcing her to "see the baby growing inside her." My wife had a "baby" growing inside her - an embryo that had implanted itself in her tube (which was blocked due to scarring from endometriosis, although we didn't know that when she got pregnant). We could have waited to see if it aborted naturally, but that could have easily led to her tube rupturing, which would have killed her at worst, and at best would have severely impacted her further fertility. We had already had multiple trans-v_g_n_l ultrasounds and her hCG levels (pregnancy hormone in the blood) had plateaued, so we knew there was no viable fetus developing and no hope. Our best option was an abortion with methotrexate (a cancer drug that kills fast growing cells), and we took it. Ideologues like you don't care about people like my wife. Your personhood bills would potentially criminalize what she did to save her life and her fertility (since they're written so sloppily that they could possibly criminalize aborting ectopic pregnancies). Your ultrasound bills would have forced her to go through yet another invasive ultrasound when she was making the hardest, most emotionally devastating decision of her life, to terminate her first pregnancy after we'd already spent years dealing with infertility. You couldn't care less, because you want to insert (quite literally, in this case) the government into women's healthcare decisions (the most un-conservative position I can imagine), all because you fantasize that a fetus that couldn't possibly live outside a woman's body on its own is a fully formed human being and deserves to be protected to such extremes that you'd risk the life of women like my wife to make a political point. If anyone is hypocritically politicizing this issue, sir, it is you, and it sickens me to see. Keep the government's hands off my wife's body, please.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm sorry for your loss, but your experience has no bearing on this issue. You say yourself that your wife had multiple ultrasounds, some of which I'm sure you viewed. Those ultrasounds led to a tragic diagnosis, but one that probably saved your wife's life.
A woman going in for an abortion should have an ultrasound and abortion providers in mass seem to concur. The issue of viewing the ultrasound should fall under informed consent. Would you and your wife have consented to a medically necessary abortion if your doctors had not definitively shown that it was an ectopic pregnancy? If they had refused to let you see the ultrasounds, what would you have done?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"your experience has no bearing on this issue."
Except, it does, because bills like this would have forced my wife to have yet another ultrasound as she sat in the pregnancy ward of the hospital (yes, that's where they send you to abort an ectopic...how sick is that?) and would have forced her to look at that image as she was already tormenting herself for making the decision she had to make - and that's setting aside the personhood laws that could potentially make life-saving early term abortions illegal (not to mention IVF).
"Would you and your wife have consented to a medically necessary abortion if your doctors had not definitively shown that it was an ectopic pregnancy? If they had refused to let you see the ultrasounds, what would you have done?"
Actually the ultrasounds never did definitively show ectopic - they showed an empty uterus, and that combined with the falling hCG levels made us presume ectopic. Later she was found to have blocked tubes and endo, which pretty much confirmed it, but at the time we weren't 100% sure. Real life medical decisions aren't always completely black and white, but the law and government are very poor at shades of gray. Again - this is a decision for a woman and her doctor, alone. The state should have no part of it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseUh, no. Your wife had multiple ultrasounds and received a diagnosis of ectopic pregnancy. At that point, I assume, your OB/GYN referred your wife for a medical abortion, sending along, I'm sure, all of the pertinent scans and reports. There would be no reason for the staff to order an additional ultrasound.
As for the diagnosis, an empty uterus and falling hCG levels are precisely how an ectopic pregnancy is diagnosed. In addition, a culdocentesis can be peformed if a fallopian tube rupture is suspected.
But again... if you went in for an ultrasound and the doctors turned the monitors away from you, refused to turn them around, then told you that the pregnancy was ectopic and needed to be aborted, would you have taken their word? Or would you have demanded to see all the scans so you could be fully informed?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"There would be no reason for the staff to order an additional ultrasound."
The way many of these laws are written, another ultrasound would be required. Why do you think otherwise? My wife has her last ultrasound about a week before she had the abortion - we waited a bit to see if her hCG levels would start rising again, but they didn't. My impression is that these laws would require the ultrasound to be part and parcel to the abortion procedure, and I doubt very much that they'd consider a week old ultrasound to be good enough. Even if they legally did, I'm sure the place carrying out the procedure would push her to have another one just out of CYA, because they'd be so afraid of getting prosecuted by some religious nut local D.A.
"Or would you have demanded to see all the scans so you could be fully informed?"
We would have had the CHOICE to do what we saw fit. This is my fundamental problem with these laws - they are about forcing women to do something that they may not need to do. No abortion provider withholds medically important information from a woman seeking an abortion, and it's absurd to try to justify these procedures as an attempt to protect women. If abortion providers are withholding information the woman wants to see, she has the right to go somewhere else - nobody forces a person to go to a certain doctor (although the anti-abortion crusade certainly has made it harder for women to find good, qualified doctors that provide abortions - if pro-lifers really cared about women's health they'd not go around shooting competent abortion doctors to death and bombing their clinics, would they?) They're not, the author of this article freely admits they're not, and I'm not even going to debate it further with you because there's nothing to debate.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNo, there is nothing to debate with you.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSecond half of my comment aside (which I admit got a bit hyperbolic, but you can understand why this issue is upsetting to me), why DO you think that my wife wouldn't have been required to get another ultrasound? If you have no answer to that, do you think it's right and proper that she could be forced to do so? And what about those personhood laws, which you've yet to comment on?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBecause she had already had multiple ultrasounds, received a medical diagnosis from her OB/GYN, and been referred for treatment for that diagnosis. This is a lot different from a woman taking a home pregnancy test, walking into an abortion clinic, and requesting an abortion. I'm sure you can see why it would be important for that woman to also receive verification that she is not experiencing an ectopic pregnancy or, in the case of surgical abortion, that she does not have placenta previa (where the placenta either partially or fully covers the cervix).
There are many well-documented instances of abortion providers refusing to allow patients to see the ultrasound, for their own good, of course. And for anyone to say that the woman could just leave and go somewhere else... well, that's just wrong. It's wrong for a doctor to refuse to allow a patient to see any kind of diagnostic tool, whether it's an ultrasound, x-ray, MRI, or CT scan. Even the most complex diagnoses are still shown to patients in every case. Every case, that is, except for abortions.
As for personhood laws, I'm not sure how a non-viable ectopic pregnancy could be included in that. You seem to think they're not written well enough to exclude them. If they aren't, they should be. There is no religion out there that demands a woman continue an ectopic pregnancy that may prove fatal. Ectopic pregnancies are non-viable. There is nothing that can be done to save the embryo. While the Catholic Church would not advocate the particular treatment your wife underwent, a salpingectomy is an accepted method.
I can certainly understand how this issue is upsetting for you. I hope you can see that I am not attacking the course of action that you and your wife were forced to take. I also hope you can see that your situation is a lot different from the focus of this particular law.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"It's wrong for a doctor to refuse to allow a patient to see any kind of diagnostic tool, whether it's an ultrasound, x-ray, MRI, or CT scan. Even the most complex diagnoses are still shown to patients in every case."
Heh...not always. Many states have laws that specifically bar labs from releasing bloodwork, x-rays, etc. to patients - they have to go directly to the doctor (fortunately my state isn't one of those), and the doctor isn't required to give or show them to the patient either. I think that all doctors should be required to show all ultrasounds, labwork, etc. to patients IF the patient wants to see them, but I don't think that the patient should be required by law to get any sort of test, and I don't think that they should be required to look at them if they don't want to. Having that sort of law in place (heck, I'd even be okay with a regulation that said abortion doctors were required to tell a woman she has the option of having an ultrasound and looking at it if she wants to, as long as it wasn't required) would cover 99% of the concerns you've raised. There is no reason to require an ultrasound and no reason to require the woman to look at it other than to try to discourage her from getting an abortion. You still haven't made an argument that's convincing that it's about women's health.
Look - you seem to be fairly reasonable on this issue, but look at your fellow travelers and you will see that there are many that are not. Really listen to their rhetoric, read the bills, and you will see that they are sloppy, that they don't have strong protections for the health of the mother, and that the focus is on cutting back abortion rights at all cost, first and foremost.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAgain, there are at least two reasons to require an ultrasound: to rule out ectopic pregnancy and to rule out placenta previa. I am not sure how you can state that there is not a health issue here, especially considering your own circumstances.
Should a woman be forced to look at the ultrasound? No. No more than a cancer patient should be forced to look at his CT scan. But it should be standard practice to offer the opportunity. Patients should not be actively discouraged or prevented from doing so.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Again, there are at least two reasons to require an ultrasound: to rule out ectopic pregnancy and to rule out placenta previa"
Can you say with a straight face that you really think the reason people are pushing these bills is because they care about those issues? Those are absolutely valid reasons for making an ultrasound standard procedure, but they're not valid reasons for legally requiring it.
"Should a woman be forced to look at the ultrasound? No. "
You realize that some of these bills have attempted to require just that?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhether or not the people pushing the bills are doing it for that reason, they still remain valid reasons. And, like it or not, the government does have some say in medical practices. After all, doctors receive their licenses from the state. The fact that some 20% of abortion providers are not currently completing ultrasounds prior to aborting is troubling, to say the least. When complications (even to death) ensue and the patients sue those doctors in court, the government will be there and will be deciding whether the doctors practiced according to standard.
I do realize that some of the bills are attempting to require that. I disagree with that attempt. But my argument has not been about that. I'm focused on the medical necessity of ultrasound prior to an abortion and the right of the patient to view the results of that abortion, regardless of whether or not the doctor or staff member thinks it is in the best interest of the patient to do so.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnd your personal experiences you shared have literally nothing to do with your opposition to these laws.
Because, after all, your own personal experience merely highlights a public health rationale for passing these laws, in addition to fully informing the decisions to abort.
But you are right -- pro lifers fully expect fewer women to choose abortion after viewing the ultrasound image.
Pro-choicers don't know that? Your opposition is fully divorced from what you think will happen to the decision to abort?
Kettle? Or should we call you Pot?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHeh, "abortion rights".
Because we all know that "abortion rights" is why the Founders started this great nation!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYep, that's why the Founders wrote the abortion rights into the margins of the Bill of Rights in invisible ink, and it took 184 years for the SCOTUS to find it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe law in question doesn't require the woman to look at the ultrasound; merely that she be presented the option.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse