# Conservatives hate being forced to buy health insurance, but they're OK with mandating ultrasounds? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 13, 2012, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-hate-being-forced-to-buy-health-insurance-but-theyre-ok-with-mandating-ultrasounds/615672 "2012-03-13T18:30:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-hate-being-forced-to-buy-health-insurance-but-theyre-ok-with-mandating-ultrasounds/615672/41 "2012-03-14T06:13:02Z")
**Kanicbird** isn’t conservative – if you’re read his other posts, he’s flat out loony toons. I’d suggest just ignoring anything he says. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-hate-being-forced-to-buy-health-insurance-but-theyre-ok-with-mandating-ultrasounds/615672/42 "2012-03-14T12:14:14Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > To me is it simply the reasonable way to respect and honor the life of the unborn child who will soon be dead. I’m not talking about transvaginal ultrasounds, women’s right to abortion IMHO includes her right to refuse such invasive procedures for the fetus, nor does it require she views the ultrasound. But a external ultrasound is just a way to acknowledge that the fetus is one of us, a human just in bad circumstances. Not that I consider myself a conservative. So, we should legislate actions to honor and acknowledge other human beings in bad circumstances? OK. I propose that all insured men get mammograms to honor and acknowledge those uninsured women who go without care and don’t manage to detect breast cancer early enough to give them good survival odds. I propose that we legislate that all people spend two nights living in the streets to acknowledge and honor the homeless. And that further, all families live on $2 of food per person per day for a month to acknowledge those that go hungry. We should, of course, all be required to give our bodies up after death - organs to be harvested and if your body isn’t good for that, it can certainly be used for science. Or soap for the poor. This could be fun…how many burdens can I place on people to honor and acknowledge those in bad circumstances? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Greenjeans](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.greenjeans/32/551_2.png) [@Mr.Greenjeans](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Greenjeans)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-hate-being-forced-to-buy-health-insurance-but-theyre-ok-with-mandating-ultrasounds/615672/43 "2012-03-14T12:21:40Z")
> [@Shayna](#): > > _“A federal appeals court this month upheld a Texas law that requires a woman seeking an abortion to undergo a sonogram, **forces doctors to describe that sonogram in detail to her** and then requires that she wait 24 hours before she can undergo the procedure.”_ Is there a potential lawsuit here if the doctor’s description causes mental anguish? ---
**Author:** ![biddee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@biddee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/biddee)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-hate-being-forced-to-buy-health-insurance-but-theyre-ok-with-mandating-ultrasounds/615672/44 "2012-03-14T12:27:20Z")
Considering [this](http://www.advancedfertility.com/ultraso1.htm) is what a 5-6 week ultrasound looks like and [this](http://www.advancedfertility.com/ultraso4.htm) is what and 8 week ultrasound looks like, I really don’t see how that will make a woman change her mind. It’s blob on a screen. Around 12 weeks it starts to actually look like a [baby](http://www.advancedfertility.com/ultraso5.htm). Since the majority of abortions are performed between 6-8 weeks, this bill is just stupid and will not make one woman change her mind. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-hate-being-forced-to-buy-health-insurance-but-theyre-ok-with-mandating-ultrasounds/615672/45 "2012-03-14T13:32:10Z")
I am strongly pro-life. I am absolutely convinced that a five-week pregnancy is a human being, and terminating it is killing a human being. However, I oppose this law. Why? I agree it will have an effect of stopping at least some abortions, and so you’d think I’d be all for it. But… that’s not the way we ought to do things. This is, in principle, no different from anti-gun municipal governments forced to acknowledge that gun ownership is technically legal, but throwing every obstacle they can in the way of the actual exercise of that right. Here, we have a bill that intrudes on the personal liberty of doctors and patients seeking abortions. The state should have every right in the world to forbid abortion outright, but they don’t, because the law of the land says otherwise. So the proper procedure is to change the law of the land. We balance the personal intrusion on liberty against the fact that the doctor and the patient wish to exercise a perfectly legal right, and the intrusion on liberty must lost. That’s a bad outcome, but the way to fix it is change the law on abortion as a whole. As long as it is legal, as long as it is considered a right, laws like this are unjustified. Pro-life, but consistent. That’s me. ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-hate-being-forced-to-buy-health-insurance-but-theyre-ok-with-mandating-ultrasounds/615672/46 "2012-03-14T14:07:01Z")
> [@Algher](#): > > That said, I think that before you get Viagra you have to watch 70s porn for an hour, while being observed, to see if you really need it. This is an actual proposed ammendment to the Informed Consent bill in Virginia, just barely voted down. > [@](#): > > Prior to prescribing medication for erectile dysfunction, a physician shall perform a digital rectal examination and a cardiac stress test. > > Informed consent for these procedures shall be given at least 24 hours before the procedures are performed. For some reason, a bunch of old men don’t think they should have to undergo an invasive procedure just to get the medical treatment they want. Who woulda guessed? ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-hate-being-forced-to-buy-health-insurance-but-theyre-ok-with-mandating-ultrasounds/615672/47 "2012-03-14T14:10:26Z")
They should embrace the cost-saving benefits. Once they get their prostates tickled, they aren’t going to need the Viagra. ---
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-hate-being-forced-to-buy-health-insurance-but-theyre-ok-with-mandating-ultrasounds/615672/48 "2012-03-14T14:16:51Z")
That’s an honest position, **Bricker** , but I think it misses the greater point. I’ve always thought that the Republican agenda was to _not_ get _Roe v. Wade_ overturned, either by packing the Supreme Court or by other means such as a Constitutional amendment. Why? If they did, not only would it energize the pro-choice base, but it would also remove one of their campaign slogans. “I’m going to make sure Bad Activity X is banned” is a lot more persuasive in a campaign than “I’m going to make sure Bad Activity X remains illegal.” Politicians love to pass laws making things illegal because it’s a demonstration that “they’re looking out for their constituency.” Maintaining the status quo isn’t as exciting. So what happens? The Republicans don’t want to overturn _Roe v. Wade_, but they can pick it to death. Nibbling away at it bit by bit, especially at the state level, might fly under the radar enough to not be noticed by everyone in the pro-choice group. But more importantly, it allows a lot of GOP politicians to be able to say, “See, I passed (Legislation X) against abortion rights.” Then in the next cycle, “See, I passed (Legislation Y) against abortion rights.” And on and on _ad infinitum_. The bottom line is, passing absurdly intrusive laws like this _is_ the Republican strategy. You might think the “proper procedure” is to change _Roe v. Wade_, but I doubt that the GOP agrees with you on that. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-hate-being-forced-to-buy-health-insurance-but-theyre-ok-with-mandating-ultrasounds/615672/49 "2012-03-14T14:40:14Z")
That’s nice **Bricker**. But the proper procedure for on abortion is for old men like you to STFU and mind your own damned business. What a woman like myself chooses to do with her reproductive organs is ultimately none of your concern. I’m sick and tired of old men – especially the celibate old men of the Catholic church – santimoniously attempting to dictate what the helll goes in my uterus. If you want control over ovaries get some of your own. Frankly after last night’s ouchfest you can have mine. I’ll even throw in the 3 a.m. bottle of Ibuprophen and half an hour of massive cramps that went with it. But ultimately the choice of what goes on there is mine choice and mine alone. Any pro-lifer who wants to demand the right of control should be forced to clear all his medical decisions with other people first. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-hate-being-forced-to-buy-health-insurance-but-theyre-ok-with-mandating-ultrasounds/615672/50 "2012-03-14T15:03:17Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#): > > That’s nice **Bricker**. But the proper procedure for on abortion is for old men like you to STFU and mind your own damned business. What a woman like myself chooses to do with her reproductive organs is ultimately none of your concern. Well there’s the crux of the issue. The weird phenomenon of pregnancy inextricably ties two human fates together, if one believes a fetus is a human. And \*\*Bricker \*\*sincerely does (I do too, somewhere around, I’m not sure - maybe 3 months? I acknowledge it’s blurry and it’s _sort-of_-human for a while). And while I fall on the same side of the abortion issue as you, because I believe the mother’s rights outweigh the rights of the fetus, I don’t think telling abortion opponents to STFU is productive. Surely you can recognize that if one sincerely believes a fetus is a person, it’s a complicated issue involving two lives. If it were a question about Siamese twins, and whether one twin has the right to kill the other, would you dismiss it so quickly as a matter for the person making the decision, and not of society? ---
**Author:** ![saje](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saje/32/3631_2.png) [@saje](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saje)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-hate-being-forced-to-buy-health-insurance-but-theyre-ok-with-mandating-ultrasounds/615672/51 "2012-03-14T15:16:53Z")
What I don’t understand is why, if abortion is a bad thing, is contraception worse? If you want to reduce abortion rates, make contraception effective, cheap (or, better yet, free), and easy to get. As an aside, I don’t think that a potential human’s rights outweigh those of the human that conceives it, and I don’t think death is the worst thing that can happen, to any living thing. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-hate-being-forced-to-buy-health-insurance-but-theyre-ok-with-mandating-ultrasounds/615672/52 "2012-03-14T15:27:12Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I am strongly pro-life. I am absolutely convinced that a five-week pregnancy is a human being, and terminating it is killing a human being. > > However, I oppose this law. > > Why? I agree it will have an effect of stopping at least some abortions, and so you’d think I’d be all for it. > > But… that’s not the way we ought to do things. This is, in principle, no different from anti-gun municipal governments forced to acknowledge that gun ownership is technically legal, but throwing every obstacle they can in the way of the actual exercise of that right. > > Here, we have a bill that intrudes on the personal liberty of doctors and patients seeking abortions. The state should have every right in the world to forbid abortion outright, but they don’t, because the law of the land says otherwise. So the proper procedure is to change the law of the land. We balance the personal intrusion on liberty against the fact that the doctor and the patient wish to exercise a perfectly legal right, and the intrusion on liberty must lost. That’s a bad outcome, but the way to fix it is change the law on abortion as a whole. As long as it is legal, as long as it is considered a right, laws like this are unjustified. > > Pro-life, but consistent. That’s me. Turn that around and that’s my position on guns. Don’t want one in the house myself, but they are legal. And I got there via the consistency thing, I realized that I didn’t approve of obsticles to abortion, I should be consistent on guns. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-hate-being-forced-to-buy-health-insurance-but-theyre-ok-with-mandating-ultrasounds/615672/53 "2012-03-14T15:42:50Z")
> [@bup](#): > > If it were a question about Siamese twins, and whether one twin has the right to kill the other, would you dismiss it so quickly as a matter for the person making the decision, and not of society? “Siamese” twins? Really? That’s what you’re goin’ with? Oh, and if one of those twins was a fully functional human being who would be fine without the other, who was entirely dependent upon his twin for all biological functions and had the sentience of a fetus at any stage of development, fuck yes that’s the former twin’s decision. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-hate-being-forced-to-buy-health-insurance-but-theyre-ok-with-mandating-ultrasounds/615672/54 "2012-03-14T15:44:34Z")
> [@DianaG](#): > > “Siamese” twins? Really? That’s what you’re goin’ with? What are they called now? I plead “old.” ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-hate-being-forced-to-buy-health-insurance-but-theyre-ok-with-mandating-ultrasounds/615672/55 "2012-03-14T15:45:31Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Well there’s the crux of the issue. The weird phenomenon of pregnancy inextricably ties two human fates together, if one believes a fetus is a human. > > And \*\*Bricker \*\*sincerely does (I do too, somewhere around, I’m not sure - maybe 3 months? I acknowledge it’s blurry and it’s _sort-of_-human for a while). > > And while I fall on the same side of the abortion issue as you, because I believe the mother’s rights outweigh the rights of the fetus, I don’t think telling abortion opponents to STFU is productive. Surely you can recognize that if one sincerely believes a fetus is a person, it’s a complicated issue involving two lives. > > If it were a question about Siamese twins, and whether one twin has the right to kill the other, would you dismiss it so quickly as a matter for the person making the decision, and not of society? The problem with that argument is that pregnancy is not just a weird phenomenon. It’s an often dangerous medical condition with potentially serious consequences for the woman in question. I’ve been pregnant several times if you include ectopics and chemicals. The ectopics involved painful methotrexate shots to resolve. The two pregnancies that went to term involved all of sorts of really bad medical complications. During the first I was in the hospital for two weeks literally unable to keep any food down. I cannot begin to explain what it is like to be six months pregnant and afraid of eating. During the second I went through weeks of horrifying breathlessness and high blood pressure so bad my doctor was afraid I would have a stroke during labor. A pregnancy is a medical condition. If a woman chooses to go through with it that is her decision and her decision alone. Yes, I damned well think abortion opponents should shut the fuck up. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-hate-being-forced-to-buy-health-insurance-but-theyre-ok-with-mandating-ultrasounds/615672/56 "2012-03-14T15:46:19Z")
Dude, please, “conjoined twins” is the preferred nomenclature. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-hate-being-forced-to-buy-health-insurance-but-theyre-ok-with-mandating-ultrasounds/615672/57 "2012-03-14T15:46:38Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > Turn that around and that’s my position on guns. Don’t want one in the house myself, but they are legal. And I got there via the consistency thing, I realized that I didn’t approve of obsticles to abortion, I should be consistent on guns. Good on ya. I’m in the same camp. I’d support a Constitutional amendment to clarify the Second Amendment, and even without that I support a liberal interpretation of the Second based on the militia clause. and of course, if I support that sort of thing, I have to support the idea of legislating against abortion, even though I am unabashedly pro-abortion. Anything less would make me a hypocrite. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-hate-being-forced-to-buy-health-insurance-but-theyre-ok-with-mandating-ultrasounds/615672/58 "2012-03-14T15:46:41Z")
> [@bup](#): > > What are they called now? I plead “old.” Conjoined, but really the problem is the ineptitude of the analogy. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-hate-being-forced-to-buy-health-insurance-but-theyre-ok-with-mandating-ultrasounds/615672/59 "2012-03-14T15:55:38Z")
As one of the supporters of the Virginian bill said, they believe that women already stuck something up their vaginas, so one more thing (the ultrasound) wouldn’t matter. The despicable hatred for women in every syllable of that statement is shocking ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-hate-being-forced-to-buy-health-insurance-but-theyre-ok-with-mandating-ultrasounds/615672/60 "2012-03-14T15:56:45Z")
> [@Anne\_Neville](#): > > Since most abortions are done early in pregnancy, I wonder if this won’t backfire. Early embryos _don’t_ look very much like babies. I say this as someone who is 18 weeks into a wanted pregnancy, who has been looking at those “your pregnancy week by week” sites since I missed that first period. [Embryo at 6 weeks](http://www.babyzone.com/pregnancy-week-by-week/6-weeks-pregnant_70619). [7 weeks.](http://www.babyzone.com/pregnancy-week-by-week/7-weeks-pregnant_70628) If you saw those on an ultrasound, you wouldn’t say they looked like babies. Embryos start to look vaguely humanoid around 8 weeks, but not really that much like a baby. > [@biddee](#): > > Considering [this](http://www.advancedfertility.com/ultraso1.htm) is what a 5-6 week ultrasound looks like and [this](http://www.advancedfertility.com/ultraso4.htm) is what and 8 week ultrasound looks like, I really don’t see how that will make a woman change her mind. It’s blob on a screen. Around 12 weeks it starts to actually look like a [baby](http://www.advancedfertility.com/ultraso5.htm). Since the majority of abortions are performed between 6-8 weeks, this bill is just stupid and will not make one woman change her mind. I was thinking the same thing. I think that the anti abortion forces made the mistake of believing their own rhetoric. After showing so many pictures of miscarried fully formed babies and handing out little pins with feet, they assumed that what women would see on the sonogram would be a cute little baby, when in fact it more matches the pro-choice reality that it is a semi formed blob of tissue. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-hate-being-forced-to-buy-health-insurance-but-theyre-ok-with-mandating-ultrasounds/615672.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-hate-being-forced-to-buy-health-insurance-but-theyre-ok-with-mandating-ultrasounds/615672.md?page=4)