Tag Archive for "ultrasound laws"

Posts Tagged ultrasound laws

The Feministing Five: Merle Hoffman

Merle Hoffman is a legendary women’s rights activist, journalist and health care pioneer. Since the early 1970s, she’s fought on the front lines of the war against women, standing up against anti-choice activists since before Roe v. Wade was passed. In 1971, Hoffman helped found one of America’s first ambulatory abortion centers: the Flushing Women’s Medical Center in New York, since renamed Choices Women’s Medical Center.

Under Hoffman’s leadership, the center has expanded to offer a comprehensive range of both reproductive and primary care services. The medical center is founded under the vision of “Patient Power,” a term Hoffman coined, which is a philosophy grounded in knowledge and education, empowering all patients in the health care system.

She is also the ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 12 years ago

Quick Hit: One woman’s experience with Texas’ new mandatory ultrasound law

*Trigger warning*

Here’s a rule: When you, as legislators with neither professional medical experience nor personal experience being pregnant, pass laws that result in doctors and nurses repeatedly apologizing to sobbing women, you’re doing something wrong.

“I am so sorry,” the young woman said with compassion, and nudged the tissues closer. Then, after a moment’s pause, she told me reluctantly about the new Texas sonogram law that had just come into effect. I’d already heard about it. The law passed last spring but had been suppressed by legal injunction until two weeks earlier.

My counselor said that the law required me to have another ultrasound that day, and that I was legally obligated to hear a doctor describe my baby. I’d then ...

*Trigger warning*

“I am ...

By Jos Truitt • 12 years ago

Newspapers censor “Doonesbury” strips about abortion news

All this week, “Doonesbury” is running a series of comic strips about the ultrasound laws that have popped up recently. The first strip features an abortion patient being sent to the “Shaming Room.”

I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise in our current political climate that some newspapers have decided not to run the strips about abortion. Or that the list of papers that have opted out of running the strip is dominated by publications in states where ultrasound laws have come up.

Of course, you can read the strips online if your newspaper is afraid of humor about the news.

Jamil Smith took a look at some of the papers censoring the strips and found a ...

I guess it shouldn’t ...

By Samhita • 12 years ago

McDonnell signs Virginia ultrasound bill

Despite tremendous outcry, all over the internet and on the steps of the Virginia capital–woman-hater Gov. Bob McDonnell has signed the ultrasound bill in Virginia into law. If you are seeking an abortion in Virginia you are required to have an ultrasound. And they may have backed down from making a transvaginal ultrasound mandatory–but there are many reasons this bill is still a medically unnecessary, invasion of privacy.

What conservatives argue is necessary for women to have all the information (like they don’t know they are pregnant and if they don’t have an abortion they will have a child) to make an informed decision, we know is a tactic to shame women out of having abortions. Virginia is the ...

By Katie Halper • 12 years ago

New rule for vaginaphobes: if you can’t say it, you can’t probe it!

Why is it that the same people who want to get all up into women’s vaginas shudder at the mention of the word vagina and are unable to actually say it?

I guess the answer is obvious; the same people who are sadistic enough to make a woman undergo an invasive medically unnecessary procedure whose only goal is to punish a woman for using her vagina for anything but procreation, are probably a little bit uncomfortable with sexuality. But some of these guys wear their vaginaphobia on their… sleeves.

First, Virginia delegate David Albo, who treated the House of Delegates to a musical theater reenactment of his attempt to seduce his wife, complains that just as he was about to seal the deal,

All of a ...

Why is it that the same people who want to get all up into women’s vaginas shudder at the mention of the word vagina and are unable to actually say it?

I guess the answer is obvious; the ...

By Vanessa • 12 years ago

Virginia transvaginal ultrasound bill delayed after a thousand protest outside capitol

After a thousand people stood arm in arm outside of the Virginia state capitol in protest yesterday, the legislature decided to delay a vote on the highly controversial state-sanctioned rape bill that would require doctors to perform a medically unnecessary transvaginal ultrasound on individuals seeking an abortion.

This comes after a poll was just released revealed that 55% of voters in Virginia oppose the bill. Meanwhile, Gov. McDonnell’s spokesperson recently gave some indication the governor may be backing away from the bill (after previously saying it was a sure thing). But I’m not convinced of anything until this bill is good and dead, which it certainly is not. Not yet, at least.

And ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 12 years ago

Judge blocks North Carolina’s forced ultrasound law

It’s nice to see some good pro-choice news out of North Carolina after Monday’s scary report on crisis pregnancy centers. Yesterday, a federal judge blocked the mandatory ultrasound provision in a new anti-choice state law that was set to go into effect today. (Unfortunately, the judge upheld the part requiring a 24-hour waiting period before an abortion.)

The law would require doctors to show a woman an ultrasound image, give a detailed description of the embryo or fetus, and offer her the chance to hear the fetal heartbeat at least four hours before an abortion. The doctor would be forced to do so even if the woman objected. No exceptions whatsoever. The measure ever-so-kindly allows the woman to avert ...