If we look at this from a purely political standpoint, the Republicans are foolish to pursue the “vaginal ultrasound” mandate as it is widely unpopular. I’m not sure about the requirement for the abortion clinic to have surgical capabilities and such, but the 20 week ban is actually quite popular. In fact, support for abortion in the US falls off considerably after the 1st trimester, and that’s only 12 weeks +/-. Now, the vast majority of abortions do occur in the first trimester, so a 20 week ban probably wouldn’t do much to reduce the number of abortions, but it could be like the “partial birth abortion” issue in which the Democrats may find themselves on the wrong side, politically.
I don’t like the chipping away at abortion access, but the 20 week ban is something the Republicans could leverage, politically. If they were smart, which they have not shown themselves to be of late, especially where abortion is concerned.
I guess I’ll echo some other posters who have asked if you really think a pregnant woman, pre-ultrasound, doesn’t know what she’s doing. Even putting aside the considerable personal burden of the pregnancy itself, it’s a safe bet the woman doesn’t want the financial and time burden of a child (or another child), something that can last far longer than nine months and may force dramatic limits on her educational and economic opportunties, or she just doesn’t want to. Your financial or social interest in her decision is unclear at best.
I still support laws that would require you to go through all sorts of unnecessary and unpleasant steps when you have a prostate exam. I believe that the prostate is a holy thing of vast importance to humanity. You should be forced to treat it with proper respect in accordance with my beliefs.
The purpose of the ultrasound is to make the process as humiliating and unpleasant as possible to dissuade women from even pursuing an abortion. I suspect you know this and support it. It is social engineering through slut shaming.
No. I expect that in a significant fraction of cases, seeing the ultrasound will change the mind of the mother.
If, after say, a year, if the numbers don’t show that at least 20% of women changed their minds, I’d be inclined to agree that it was simply a nuisance.
Would you agree that if at least 20% of women change their minds, it’s NOT simply a nuisance?
I’d be interested to see how that could be studied- how would researchers determine that a woman changed her mind? If at least 20% of women change their minds after seeing the forced ultrasound, then I’d be open to the possibility that seeing ultrasounds might change a woman’s mind on her abortion. But I’d still think the law is a nuisance.
A quick way would be to look at states who have implemented mandatory ultrasounds and see what happens to their abortion rates before and after the law passes.
Of course, this isn’t going to take into account any people that travel to another state for their abortion to avoid having to have the procedure.
I think you personally should have a few unnecessary objects shoved up your body parts so that you will no longer support extremist religious positions. This law is just state sanction coercion. You and fellow anti-abortionists cannot get the majority to agree with your views in this matter so you are perfectly happy to get the state harass women instead.
I don’t think she particularly cares about this. For me- even if every woman who saw an ultrasound changed her mind, it wouldn’t change my opinion on this law.
How would “changed their mind for some other reason” be measured or taken into account before the law stating that ultrasounds are required goes into affect? You can’t really measure women who think about an abortion but don’t go to a clinic.
