random babble…

Lawmakers in 12 states are trying to pass bills that require ultrasounds prior to a woman receiving abortion services.

There are a lot of problems and a lot of questions w/ what is going on here.

Aside from the vague descriptions of what some of these bills actually want (except in Indiana and Connecticut, where women are forced to view these images, listen to the heartbeat, and in one case actually receive a copy of the image even if she doesn’t want it), which I think Cara does a nice job of covering, there is not a lot of clarity here.  The first thing I want to know is who is going to pay for these costly medical procedures?  The cost of an unwanted ultrasound could be seriously debilitating to someone who is already panicking to scrape together the money for help.  Since many women list the burden of the cost of raising a child as a reason for choosing an abortion, it goes to reason to assume that the additional cost of an ultrasound would be another straw.  Many insurance plans do not cover abortions, and it doesn’t seem like a far leap to say that an ultrasound linked to it wouldn’t be covered either.  Additionally, if abortion providers sometimes already perform ultrasounds to measure the length of gestation, why the extra test?  The Missouri law notes that a doctor or other “qualified professional” can perform the ultrasound, and I fear that it leaves that open a little wide for interpretation.  I have heard of too many of these so-called Crisis Pregnancy Centers letting their counselors perform ultrasounds.  Shit, when I was 11 and at a conference for girls in Math and Science, I performed one, easily.  Finally, South Carolina is trying to pass a law changing their law to require the test 24 hours prior to performing the procedure.  If a woman is already pinching and scraping to afford her abortion, an extra ultrasound, and travel costs (since not everyone lives in an area w/ access to a facility that will perform abortions), she is now going to be faced w/ finding a way to travel again, or find accommodations, possibly missing more work or school.  Since not every woman seeking an abortion is privileged enough to have time and money to spare, these laws are clearly meant to prevent women from gaining access to abortions and to discourage them when they are so close to help.

The next thing I want to know is what the fuck has happened to a person’s right to privacy?  To their right to make medical decisions for themselves?  An ultrasound is a medical procedure, and the last I checked, no one can force a person to have a medical examination against their will, even if it saves their life (of course w/ some exceptions of competency, but that raises a whole ‘nother set of issues that are for another post another time).  Here, we have 12 states, in addition to the many states w/ similar mandates, including many that require the test performed (pdf).  

If most abortions happen w/in the first 12 weeks (and I can be corrected if I am wrong) then we are usually dealing w/ early stage pregnancy.  Early stage pregnancy often requires the use of a vaginal ultrasound.  No matter how you look at it, a vaginal ultrasound, involving a probe being inserted into the vagina, is invasive.  Having something shoved into your body is invasive.  Having an invasive procedure performed on you body against your will is beyond wrong.  My good friend The Red Queen often compares forced pregnancy to kidney donation, an argument I love.  Forcing a pregnant woman, especially one who is already scared, to have a vaginal ultrasound, to me, is akin to forcing someone to go through an organ biopsy.  Sometimes this type of ultrasound can be painful.  Everyone’s vagina is different, and while an inch and a half diameter probe might not be painful for some women, it can be for some (it was for me both times, excruciatingly so).  All of this considered, we are asking doctors to force an expensive, painful and extraneous medical procedure against her will.  Something else to consider, as I pointed out on the Feministe thread linked above, sometimes a vaginal ultrasound can require a full bladder, and sometimes that can involve a catheter to fill the bladder (both of mine did, at different facilities, performed by different providers in different cities at different stages of my pregnancy), adding yet more potentially painful and unnecessary procedures to the list of things forced upon a woman who is already dealing w/ a lot of tough things.

What seems to be the crux of the issue here is that this isn’t about the woman at all.  These tests, obviously, are not intended for the welfare of the women involved.  As Cara puts it:

It all seems to be about the poor little woman who doesn’t understand what it means to be pregnant, or who will surely have a change of heart once she sees a blurry, cloudy image that I’ve never been able to personally make out.  It’s about forcing government into the decisions of doctors, trumping science with ideology, and attempting to take away the privacy of women.  Indeed, it’s about taking the focus off of women and their rights and yet again putting the fetus, this time literally, right in the front and center of the picture.

It’s not about helping the woman at all.  It’s about control.  Controlling the doctors who are trying to help a woman in a desperate situation.  Controlling a woman who is certainly capable of making this decision for herself.  It is about limiting choices to protect the ideologies of a minority of people.  

I have said it about a million and one or more times, the best part of being pro-choice is that it limits no one.  If you don’t want an abortion, don’t fucking have one.  No one is forcing you.  The anti-choice position can not give that same comfort or right.  We are trying to protect women’s lives by putting the control where it belongs.

In the hands of the bodies it directly affects.