These are all valid points, except for the fact that the ultrasound is not medically necessary in the first place, and the woman is not permitted to refuse the transvaginal ultrasound. The correlation you’re trying to draw between the Virginia law and other states that have mandatory ultrasounds is a false one, because the other states didn’t try to specifically require that the transvaginal ultrasounds require consent which was subsequently voted down. It’s already been explained to you that ultrasounds are not routine care prior to an abortion. “Generally generate the best image” is only a case for transvaginal ultrasounds when they’re medically indicated. The state doesn’t have to “forgo” using the best technology, but it doesn’t have a right to force that technology on an unwilling patient.
Seriously, stop conflating the issue of mandatory normal ultrasounds and the inability to object to transvaginal ultrasounds. You think you’ve come to point out some grand inconsistency and say that the rape equivalency is meant to imply ultrasounds in general and not specifically transvaginal ultrasounds. It’s specifically transvaginal ultrasounds.
Further, in your defense that there isn’t anything here to indicate transvaginal ultrasounds would be mandatory, you’re omitting the fact that scores of GOP state legislators have argued in favor of transvaginal ultrasounds. One more time, for those in the back.
They aren’t arguing that it’s not in the bill, and there’s nothing to worry about. They’re saying that it’s justified and that a woman should not be permitted to refuse if she wants to obtain an abortion. The reason this is different from the other states is due to the amendment prohibiting the state from mandating transvaginal ultrasounds was voted down, which never occurred in any other state.
Hell we could require that women blow the sheriff. And men too, if we’re in Arizona.
If it were medically necessary to do an ultrasound before an abortion, that would be between a woman and her doctor. That the legislature gets involved is a guarantee that it is not.
It comes from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in their ruling of the constitutionality of the Texas sonogram law based on Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, though I’m currently having a bit of trouble locating the actual text.
Well, for one, requiring an ultrasound in the first trimester does not require a transvaginal ultrasound. But, yes, that’s what I said. The whole transvaginal ultrasound part, as I said earlier in this thread, is a total red herring as the people going on about it still wouldn’t, and won’t, support any law that says they’re not required. In fact, the whole rape issue-- of which the people screaming about it really don’t care-- is a red herring.
I would like to issue a challenge Occam’s Razor. First, read some of the posts in this thread from persons who flatly state that it’s about the fact that a sonogram is required, not the actual type of sonogram required. Second, I would like to offer up a quote from Virginia Democratic Party chairman, Brian Moran:
And thirdly, as proof to be, I’ll bet you a large sum of money that when it comes to a vote on the new legislation with McConnel’s amendment attached that one, maybe two at most, Democrats will vote for it. They will be just as steadfastly opposed to it then as they are now. Care to take it?
[QUOTE=ladyfoxfyre]
Seriously, stop conflating the issue of mandatory normal ultrasounds and the inability to object to transvaginal ultrasounds. You think you’ve come to point out some grand inconsistency and say that the rape equivalency is meant to imply ultrasounds in general and not specifically transvaginal ultrasounds. It’s specifically transvaginal ultrasounds.
[/quote]
Ummm, no. What I said was the big issue here isn’t the actual transvaginal ultrasound; but the fact a woman has to obtain an ultrasound is required before obtaining an abortion. The whole “rape” thing is just a red herring designed to kill the entire bill. In fact I’ll say that I have said it probably five or six, probably more, times in this thread now.
See above or below.
You’re talking about nothing more than politicking. I can tell you right now that the Dems did not want the bill to become law, not because it included intravaginal ultrasounds, but because it required ultrasounds to be performed prior to an abortion. Because they couldn’t outright strike that down, then they just added amendments to take out the parts they didn’t like. Even if those amendments would have passed, they still would have voted against the bill. This is nothing more than one of those “I can’t stop you from passing it, but at least I’ll try to water it down before it does” things. This would almost be akin to me arguing that the GOP really wanted to pass healthcare reform and they cared about all those proposed amendments that were unceremoniously voted down by the Democrats. Even if they were successful in getting the amendments passed, it would not have affected their final vote.
And, hell, just looking at how the Virginia House voted on the revised bill, you can see the above stated to be true.
No, that’s factually incorrect. About 25% of abortions performed before 9 weeks, and 17% of all abortions performed in the US are medical abortions, with drugs like ru-486. These abortions are also covered under this bill. To take a pill and go home and bleed for a while, you have to have a transvaginal ultrasound.
This is factually incorrect. When you consent to a medical procedure, you do NOT have to consent to ancillary medical tests and procedures. You have a right to refuse any one. Your doctor has a right to determine what the MEDICAL repurcussions of that refusal are and whether it’s MEDICALLY NECESSARY (in which case, she’d refused to do the procedure) or whether it’s NOT MEDICALLY NECESSARY, in which case she can choose to do the procedure(s) you do consent to.
Let me break that down for you. Your appendix is inflammed and needs to come out. Surgery is the only way to do this. Before your surgery, though, your doctor wants me to take some of your blood for blood tests. He wants me to place an IV access in your body. He wants me to put a Foley catheter in your urethra. He wants me to call the blood bank and get 2 pints of blood on standby in the OR in case you need a blood transfusion. You tell me, “I don’t want to have the blood tests.” I say, “Okay,” and I go tell your doctor you’re refusing the blood draw and tests. He comes to you (probably) and says, “I’d like you to have these blood tests so I know if you have enough hemoglobin in your blood to safely do a surgery,” and you say, “No, no thanks. I don’t want the blood tests.” The doctor then makes a decision: given your personal medical history and the way you’re personally presenting to him right now, does he think that doing a surgical procedure to remove your appendix is too dangerous to do with that blood test) If he thinks so (say, you’ve been vomiting blood), then he’ll say, “I’m sorry, I cannot do the procedure without those blood tests.” If he thinks it’s safe enough - even if it’s not the safest possible - then he’ll agree to do the surgery without those blood tests.
Consenting to one procedure does NOT mean you consent to another, even if they’re related procedures.
Let me be clear: I (and no one else that I’ve seen) has a problem if a medical doctor decides that this patient here needs a transvaginal ultrasound before her abortion, because it’s medically necessary for her, and he can justify that medical decision to other medical professionals. I have a HUGE problem with legislators thinking they know medicine better than medical doctors, though.
I can complain about my gynecologist raping me with his penis in his office before a PAP smear, too. Amazing how that works.
I have no idea what thread you’re reading, because a nearly disproportionate number of the complaints here have been exactly about the transvaginal probe part of the story. Your version - that it’s the ultrasound that people are calling rape - is bizarre.
No. See above. Consent to one medical procedure is not consent to another medical procedure, even if they’re related to the same medical case.
Again, factually incorrect. The purpose of an ultrasound, according to this bill, is for accurate aging of the fetus. I’ve already explained why ultrasound is a ridiculously expensive and a stupidly unorthodox way of aging fetus’ for abortions. But on top of that, you don’t need a particularly clear picture of the unborn to do that. There’s a lot of room for “good enough” in determining fetal age. You only need a couple of measurements, especially if your range is “conception” to “viable”. Only the last two weeks before “viable” would even warrant more than 10 seconds’ study with a blurry “only okay” ultrasound by a radiologist.
Abortion is the medical procedure that’s actually being consented to by the patient.
Oh, and by the way…yeah, I’ve been anti-ultrasound required for abortion before. I think that’s a gross violation of women’s rights. I don’t think it counts as rape, though, because it’s missing contact with genitals against her consent. It really is the probe that makes the rape.
I see it as a attempt to preserve the humanity of the fetus as the primary attempt of this mandate. I can also see that this primary function of the mandate to have a very likely secondary effect of fewer abortions. This will happen whenever we increase the recognized humanity of a fetus.
The reason for allowing abortions as I see it, which to me is the legal the killing of your live human child, is because the woman’s body is hers and she can withhold the right of her child in her womb to use her body.
I would also have to apply this right to her body to the transvaganal ultrasound, the fetus just doesn’t have the right if she doesn’t allow it, however the traditional ultrasound does not physically invade her body, and should be allowed (if not mandated) as the fetus does have the right to be treated humanely, which (due to modern technology) includes a image that is made available to be viewed before the fetus is killed.
Somebody please tell me so I don’t have to read this whole thread: What was the purported purpose of the ultrasound-before-abortion requirement anyway?
Which you can’t demonstrate to be the case. In fact, in holding up the other states as examples of other states which require ultrasounds that don’t result in transvaginal ultrasounds, can you demonstrate that the rape equivalency was made in arguments against mandatory ultrasounds in any of those cases? Or are you just refusing to believe what everyone in this thread is telling you, which is that the rape issue is being made about specifically the act of sticking something into a woman’s vagina before allowing her to obtain a legal, medical procedure.
And anyway, the entire bill didn’t get killed, just the transvaginal ultrasound part. The entire bill passed. Without anyone accusing normal ultrasounds of being equivalent to rape. Huh. Funny that.
One difference between Virginia ad the other states is that in other states the doctor decides what kind of ultrsound is appropriate. The doctor can do a transabdominal ultrasound, judge the fetus’ size to be less than 12 weeks and then proceed with a non-invasive medical abortion. The woman does not need ANYTHING shoved inside her.
In Virginia, the legislature specifically voted down an amendment stating that the doctor could decide if a transbdominal ultrasound was sufficient. The language mandates a transvaginal ultrasound which is different from other states. The ultrasound is not so much the problem as the fact that 1) it must be a transvaginal ultrasound (which the law requires by means of what they require the ultrasound to show) and 2) the law supercedes the physician-patient relationship and the patient’s best interests.
The other reason why Virginia is getting so much attention is that the legislature is passing a personhood bill at the same time. Other states have put this to a public vote and it has failed. Virginia alone has tried to pass it by the legislature and it will ban many forms of contraception.
However, our governor wants to be vice-president and that may keep him from signing these bills.
Seems to me the best argument against hoop-jumps is that there’s no end to them. If you agree to one unnecessary ritual to satisfy someone else’s effort to solve a problem only they perceive, they can come back and demand more rituals when the problem fails to magically be solved.
Will mandatory ultrasounds, vaginal or otherwise, cause abortion to go away? No. So why not demand three ultrasounds over a period of a week? Maybe that will do it. And make the woman sign a loyalty oath and sing the national anthem first. That might do the trick. After all, this is abortion we’re trying to get rid of! Maybe making her juggle oranges, do a tap dance and sing the Catalina Magdalena Luptenschteiner Volunbeiner song will do. We’re just gonna keep trying until we find the solution. Those poor defenseless preborn babies are counting on us!
I fear that what we have here is a failure to understand. What I can demonstrate is that no one claimed those other states whose laws lacked specific provisions detailing what kinds of sonograms would be used would be guilty of “rape”, even though there is nothing in the language which would either prohibit or require it. Much like Virginia’s law. I’m not so sure what about that is hard to understand, but oh well.
This has nothing to do with any of my posts. What, exactly, am I typing for? Do you not know what is meant by “red herring”? When I say the rape issue was a red herring, I mean that the people arguing about the whole rape aspect were not arguing against the bill because of that aspect. In fact, they were arguing against the bill almost solely because it requires an ultrasound before an abortion, which is what they’re really upset over. I’m not even sure how you’re going to deny this.
Look at the above quote from the Democratic chairman of Virginia. Look at the responses to articles online. Look at how the Democrats voted in the House. Look at the responses in this thread. They aren’t “Oh, now we can support the bill!”. It’s more “This bill still sucks because it mandates an ultrasound!”. If the rape issue was anything but a red herring, then why haven’t they all jumped on board with the proposed law? As I often say, that’s a rhetorical, of course. I know why and so do you, which has been my point.
One, could you at least get what I’ve actually said right? Two, it hasn’t pass just yet; just the House.
In one post you seem to be saying that transvaginal ultrasounds would never be required under the law, but in the other you seem to admit that they would. Do you believe, or not believe, that the language of the Virginia law would have the effect of requiring transvaginal ultrasounds in some cases? Do you believe, or not believe, that the language of the Florida law requires transvaginal ultrasounds in some cases? I think we need a straight answer from you on this before we can really discuss the issue.
As for the “red herring” issue, you aren’t making any sense. Just because I oppose women being forced to submit to medically unnecessary transvaginal probes does not mean that logically I should support women being forced to have unnecessary ultrasounds at all. That is one of the more bizarre logical conclusions I have ever seen. I do oppose them both, but only one of them is sexual assault and it is much more horrible than the other.
Democrats don’t like any form of ultrasound requirement. However, they only complained of rape in Virginia because the language of the bill mandated intravaginal ultrasound by virtue of all of the measurements required. In the other states if a woman’s physician felt a transabdominal ultrasound was adequate than a transvaginal one did not need to be done. Since the transvaginal ultrasound is not mandatory in the other states because there is another option, there has been less complaint that it is rape. Since Virginia’s legislature specifically vetoed an admendment allowing a physician’s opinion to overrule the mandate, it is clear that Virginia’s law is different.
That said, thank goodness for the fact that the governor cares more for his political career than his so-called ethics. He’s still a bigoted misogynistic SOB but he knows that his crap won’t fly nationwide.
OMGABC: The Viriginia bill did specify trans-vaginal ultrasounds. Marley’s link on the first page has a paragraph explaining this in nice plain language:
If other states also require a trans-vaginal ultrasound for no medical reason then I’d be against that too, and I’m pretty certain other people posting to this thread with similar opinions to mine would too, as long as they’re aware of such laws existing. However, no other states seem to mandate a trans-vaginal ultrasound.
The posts in this thread have made it very clear indeed that they’re talking about trans-vaginal ultrasound. I’m not sure how you can read posts using the specific words trans-vaginal ultrasound and/or talking about penetration and conclude that really, despite what their posts say, it’s ultrasound in general that’s the issue.
Not really. It’s something endemic to this board. I could type “I like blue” and, suddenly, I’ll have forty people telling me how I’m an idiot for liking red.
(A bit of hyperbole, but you get the point.)
You tried to argue that the Virginia law somehow mandated the use of transvaginal ultrasounds while the Florida law did not. I pointed out that if a state is going to mandate an ultrasound as a requirement for having an abortion that there is no reason to believe they would not use the one which gives the clearest image. As to your question, as I’ve said numerous times now, there is nothing in which either requires nor prohibits its use-- much like the Virginia law before it was changed. In fact, only the Virginia law specifies any specific kind of ultrasound whereas, before today, none did.
That’s not what a red herring is nor means. It means you’re focusing on one issue when, in fact, your issue is something else. In this case, it’s not the type of ultrasound performed, but rather the requirement for an ultrasound. I’m not so sure how much simpler than that I can state it, especially since I’ve already stated it multiple times.
Thank you for answering clearly, but I think you are mistaken.
Here is the quote from the Virginia law again:
“The ultrasound image shall be made pursuant to standard medical practice in the community, contain the dimensions of the fetus, and accurately portray the presence of external members and internal organs of the fetus, if present or viewable.”
I understand that an image sufficient to satisfy the language of the law may not be possible without a transvaginal ultrasound. Backing me up is the failed amendment which would have allowed women to opt out of the ultrasound in cases where the transvaginal ultrasound was required to get the image. Also backing me up are the many sources saying that it would be required early in pregnancies.
So I have quite a bit backing up my understanding. How did you come to your conclusion?
Can’t I have more than one issue?
Besides, the issue you are waving away is the one I consider much more horrible.