What, because the fundies want to try to force these women to have babies, the taxpayers of their states should pay to raise them? How does that compute?
You want to reduce abortions, you pay for the results yourself. That fetus you are so worried about turns into a baby that will need money. If you don’t want to pay to raise it, why do you feel you have the right to tell any one else that they have to?
My understanding is it’s done externally.
An attempt to legislate conservative values based on an emotional reaction? Oh HELL yes, those will pass. In some perverted way I’m impressed by their creativity. It reminds me very much of the gun law wrangling.
It is - for this purpose (I’ve had an ultrasound wand stuck up inside for other diagnostic tests), but ultrasounds are not free, nor have they been proven 100% safe - there is some concern that unnecessary ultrasounds may harm the fetus.
In a society where getting women who are going to give birth adequate prenatal care is often difficult, wasting resources on a fetus that a woman has decided not to carry to term seems like a waste of resources to me.
If we have all this extra ultrasound equipment lying around for this purpose and all these trained techs - lets add ultrasounds to mamography and save lives by detecting more breast cancer. But we don’t do that because we don’t have the resources to add ultrasounds to mamography, despite the fact that ultrasounds do a better job at detected certain kinds of cancern.
Then your God better watch his back.
I’m concerned with the mental health consequences of some of these proposals. I’m actually not too concerned* with the ones that say things like “offered the chance”, as long as it can be carried out in a discrete and emotionally sensitive manner by caring professionals. I’m more worried about the ones which are thinly veiled waiting period requirements or Indiana’s, which requires the woman to actually take possession of a physical copy of the image. That, to me, screams of cruel and unusual punishment, not providing informed consent. It’s about making someone feel guilty, not about giving them medical information they need to make a medical decision.
I’m also concerned with the waiting period this mandates without mandating it by name. First because of the hardship it creates for the women who can afford it least, but also because it’s sneaky legislation,. I would not be surprised if the waiting period this creates was done this way because a more explicitly labeled “waiting period” has not or would not pass in the same states. And that’s just unethical legislation, the same way sneaking in $2 million for a pet project into an entirely unrelated bill is.
Generally speaking, I agree with you. Der Trihs like to play the misogyny card in all abortion debates, and often I think he’s broad brushing it, including antiabortionists who are thoughtful, logical and even feminist in his judgement. But in this case, on the subject of this group of laws and the people pushing them, I think he’s right. There’s no indication that this is being suggested for medical purposes, it’s being suggested to punish the sluts.
The ultrasound is already there, in the clinics that provide abortions. SOP is to perform an ultrasound to determine weeks of gestation and the legality and medical appropriateness of various forms of abortion. If there’s anyone who’s not currently running an ultrasound on a women requesting an abortion, they’re not following current industry standards. So there’s no greater expense to speak of.
*Let me expound: I still think the actual offer, and the manner of that offer, for a woman to see the ultrasound is a matter between her and her doctor. I do think that every women should have the right to see her ultrasound, but I think it should be brought up as a matter of medical care, not of legislation. The right to see her ultrasound is *already *hers, as is the result of every test and imaging procedure done on her body until she dies, from x-rays to HIV tests.
Let’s drop this redundant (in the best cases) and persecutory (in the worst cases) legislation and instead spend the money educating ALL of us on our right to be involved in our own medical care.
But those ultrasound machines and technicians are not sitting around idle right now. When I needed a level three ultrasound for my pregnancy, it was a three week wait to get an appointment (that is special equipment - not the normal OBs ultrasound machine). When I needed a diagnostic ultrasound for breast issues, it was a eight day wait to get in (and this was “we suspect cancer.”) If these machines are sitting around idle, then we have a resource allocation issue.
Health care costs are increasing like crazy - in part because we can do better and better diagnostics on fairly expensive equipment. Lets use our health care dollars wisely instead of putatively.
I don’t understand what you specialized equipment need has to do with the availability of a normal OB ultrasound machine. When we couldn’t find a heartbeat at 14 weeks with the Doppler, the midwife literally snuck me across the hall into the empty room where the ultrasound machine *was *lying idle under its dustcover. (The technician wasn’t working that day; the midwife wasn’t supposed to use the machine, but she did anyway, for which I will be forever grateful.)
You still seem to be missing the point: every women who goes to a modern physician to request an abortion should be getting an ultrasound anyway, right now, without legislation. It’s the best most reliable way to determine which form of abortion is the medically correct one and if the abortion is legal in that state. If an office isn’t doing them routinely, they have some 'splaining to do to the Obstetrics Board.
These bills are trying to mandate how the patient is told *she *has the right to see the ultrasound (and some of them want to make her seeing them mandatory), but if she’s asking for an abortion, she’s already getting one for the doctor to look at (or, at minimum, the ultrasound tech to estimate gestation). There’s nothing new to pay for even if these bills are passed.
I agree that we shouldn’t be using unnecessary ultrasounds just to force a picture of a fetus on a woman who doesn’t want one. If they weren’t already routine, your point would be a good one. But they are routine before abortions, so it makes no sense.
The people (legislators who write, the Governors who sign and the people clamoring for these bills) who want women at or below poverty to carry their pregnancy to term should also be responsible as taxpayers for helping support the children they want born. Many women who seek abortions can’t afford to raise the baby they carry, and if they are going to be emotionally manipulated into giving birth to a baby they can’t afford, then those who are responsible for the laws that create the emotional manipulation should do the right thing and support the baby they (not the biological mother) wanted. Otherwise it’s a case of “We don’t care about you, we don’t care about your economic situation or the baby. We only care about you not having an abortion.” If other taxpayers didn’t agree with this, then they might reconsider supporting a bill that puts such women into an impossible situation.
Vlad/Igor
A little reading shows that your understanding is not necessarily correct, in that transvaginal ultrasounds are done in certain situations.
That’s the thing right there - not all taxpayers want to force women to carry pregnancies they don’t want. I think that anyone that supports any of these bills should be forced to pay for all these pregnancies and raise all these babies themselves. Why do they get to push legislation like this and then foist the cost off onto others?
The problem is, they will word the bill and/or the publicity around it so that a majority of the public will think it’s a good idea even if they actually disagree with the basic result - more children born into poverty for the taxpayer to support poorly. I think there needs to be more direct cause and effect - a group wants women to quit having abortions? Then they get to foot all the costs.