Dallas (CNN) -- A federal judge has blocked key parts of a Texas law that would require doctors to provide a sonogram to pregnant women before they get an abortion, days before the law was set to take effect.
U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks, in Austin, Texas, found that several portions of the law are "unconstitutionally vague," and that it violates the First Amendment by compelling doctors and patients to engage in government-mandated speech.
It would also compel people to undergo a totally unnecessary, and often costly, medical imaging procedure to receive legal medical services from trained medical professionals. The whole thing is heinous.
I think the media and the anti-choice types are counting on people seeing 'ultrasound' and picturing an external ultrasound, where they put gel on your belly and run a little thing that looks like a handheld scanner over it.
That is not the case. In the vast majority of cases, this is a transvaginal ultrasound, which is a large, dildolike device inserted way up into the vagina.
So not only is it medically unnecessary, it's really quite invasive, and probably particularly traumatizing to rape victims.
I have had those transvaginal ultrasounds. Even with my being fully informed and totally consenting to the procedure I felt oddly vulnerable and violated and just generally uncomfortable. I can't imagine what it must feel like under compulsion, or to a rape survivor.
Oh, thanks so much for making sure women--lowly, stupid things that we are--understand all the implications of pregnancy versus abortion. Thank you, thank you, thank you, fuck you.
When I was unintentionally pregnant back in the 80s, I agonized over the decision for weeks. I had no outside forces trying to talk me into or out of anything. In the end I decided to have my baby. But it was my decision and ME who agonized over it. As I'm sure many women do.
Look, I know the pro-lifers have their hearts in the right place. I get they want to put a stop to abortion and hey, so do I. But I'd like to stop it with proper birth control efficacy and education. Not ham-handed, rights-abusing ways like these laws.
(I also know that nothing I'm saying here is new or enlightening. But sometimes I can't help myself. Really.)
Look, I know the pro-lifers have their hearts in the right place. I get they want to put a stop to abortion and hey, so do I. But I'd like to stop it with proper birth control efficacy and education. Not ham-handed, rights-abusing ways like these laws.
I don't think the people who advocate these kinds of restrictions on abortion have their hearts in the right place. I think this kind of state interference with a woman's right to an abortion is rooted primarily in a hostility towards the dignity and independent agency of women. The "abortion stops a beating heart" figleaf is too small to conceal this, even if some people who support this kind of legislation sincerely think that it isn't. A woman can still get an abortion under this law. The authors of this law simply want to force her to endure an invasive and unnecessary medical procedure in order to do so.
A woman can still get an abortion under this law. The authors of this law simply want to force her to endure an invasive and unnecessary medical procedure in order to do so.
... thereby ensuring that she won't get one because of the increased pressure, added to an already stressful situation.
And yeah, this gets me all het up because my dad is an anti-abortion nut, driven by his return to Catholicism 15 years ago. Drives me nuts, this wearing diaper pin ribbons in his lapel and collecting pennies in a baby bottle.
Laws like this are passed in part because religious nuts like my dad support them.
I have a rule of thumb when gauging whether pro-life types are acting out of sincere concern for what they believe to be human life worth preserving: does the person in question support effective sex education and easy access to contraception? If not then, no, I don't believe that their hearts are in the right place or whatever. They just have a bug up their ass about their inability to control other people's sexuality.
__________________
"Trans Am Jesus" is "what hanged me"
Look, I know the pro-lifers have their hearts in the right place. I get they want to put a stop to abortion and hey, so do I. But I'd like to stop it with proper birth control efficacy and education. Not ham-handed, rights-abusing ways like these laws.
Yeah, I agree with most of that, but I also don't think their hearts are necessarily in the right places, and I would also add that I am totally pro-abortion, and it is not my goal to eliminate abortion any more than it is my goal to eliminate chemotherapy. It would be nice, of course, if people didn't have unwanted pregnancies or cancer in the first place, but I don't feel the need to distance myself from other medical procedures that way, so I'm not going to do it with abortion. It's a medical treatment for a medical condition, and I am in favor of those treatments being available to anyone who needs them.
I have a rule of thumb when gauging whether pro-life types are acting out of sincere concern for what they believe to be human life worth preserving: does the person in question support effective sex education and easy access to contraception? If not then, no, I don't believe that their hearts are in the right place or whatever. They just have a bug up their ass about their inability to control other people's sexuality.
I have an even meaner one: Do they support exceptions in the case of rape or incest? If so, well, then, it's obviously a moral judgment, and they're just interested in punishing the slutty-sluts who get pregnant via consensual sex.
And if they don't support exceptions in the case of rape or incest, they don't support exceptions in the case of rape or incest!
Neither one of those is compatible with someone who respects women as human beings.
I'm hoping the next thing they overturn is the rectal and hernia exams the nurse does before I can talk to the receptionist about setting up my counseling sessions to approve an appointment with my doctor to get a viagra prescription.
I guess they check to see if anything stirs to avoid fraud and then want to make sure I'm of sound mind and not going to do anything wrong; like spill any seed.
There are way too many prerequisites for medical procedures involving reproduction anymore.
__________________
Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for the night. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm the rest of his life.
I have a rule of thumb when gauging whether pro-life types are acting out of sincere concern for what they believe to be human life worth preserving
I gauge by how and if they support those in need that have already been born. If concern ends at birth, they aren't really concerned about preserving life at all.
I think the media and the anti-choice types are counting on people seeing 'ultrasound' and picturing an external ultrasound, where they put gel on your belly and run a little thing that looks like a handheld scanner over it.
That is not the case. In the vast majority of cases, this is a transvaginal ultrasound, which is a large, dildolike device inserted way up into the vagina.
So not only is it medically unnecessary, it's really quite invasive, and probably particularly traumatizing to rape victims.
Over the course of this pregnancy, I have had both kinds of US and neither is something that I would want required. Yes, one is much more invasive, but even an external US is something that requires you to be a lot more naked and vulnerable than you need to be in order to make up your mind. And that gel is totally nasty.
Plus, the fact that it is invasive AND I'm not sure it makes a whole lot of difference in making up your mind is just excessive medical intervention. Our B is both planned for AND greatly wanted, but the early US was just neat confirmation--it didn't make me a zillion times more maternal or love its little limb buds more or less.
even an external US is something that requires you to be a lot more naked and vulnerable than you need to be in order to make up your mind.
Good point. Anything reproduction healthcare wise seems to involve a whole bunch of strangers seeing you naked and spread eagled, poking you with needles, sticking things in your mystery places, and just in general touching all over you. It's completely bad enough as it is without it being required by the state for no reason.
And as for a signed affidavit regarding infiltrations of my vagina being on permanent record and available for legislators to wack over? Fuck you buddeh.
Guess what! They hate you too! But only when you try to act like a human being instead of a quasi-sentient womb. Now put this government dildo up yourself and be quiet, lady.
I have an even meaner one: Do they support exceptions in the case of rape or incest? If so, well, then, it's obviously a moral judgment, and they're just interested in punishing the slutty-sluts who get pregnant via consensual sex.
And if they don't support exceptions in the case of rape or incest, they don't support exceptions in the case of rape or incest!
Neither one of those is compatible with someone who respects women as human beings.
It's even worse when you hear it from women; the most rabid pro-lifer I know is thankfully someone I only know online. But she's also a Catholic fundie.
I gauge by how and if they support those in need that have already been born. If concern ends at birth, they aren't really concerned about preserving life at all.
How and if they support those in need that have already been born and likely to vote Republican
Opinion. I haven't read it closely yet, but footnote 2 on page 20 is pretty close to the mark.
OMG the judge wrote that? He just called them hypocrites in the footnotes of his decision! Again, pretty bald talk coming out of the courts.
Maybe it's always been that way, but I am still surprised by it. It's just not an expected thing in public information from the judiciary to me.
Four days before issuing his opinion in the Texas H.B. 15 case the same judge issued this brief masterpiece. Unnerved the lawyers so thoroughly that they've since settled the case.
It's good to be an Article III judge.
__________________
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis D. Brandeis
"Psychos do not explode when sunlight hits them, I don't give a fuck how crazy they are." ~ S. Gecko
Sparks Shocks Pro-Lifers in Texas
Linear Mode
