On mandatory ultrasounds
This from Veronica Schanoes's lj (locked entry, reposted with permission) - and Ellen Datlow's repost.
Mandatory ultrasounds
I've been seeing a lot of reporting on anti-abortion legislation that includes mandates that women receive medically unnecessary ultrasounds, have doctors explain what they're seeing and make them listen to the zygote/embryo/fetus's heartbeat if one exists, and then wait 24 hours before actually receiving the medical procedure that they have arrived for, one which is much, much safer than pregnancy and childbirth.
It's part of the right-wing rhetoric of "those poor ignorant women just don't realize that they're getting abortions when they get abortions!"
No. Just, no. Guys? Women know what pregnancy is; they know that what's in their uteruses could develop into a baby; that is why they are getting abortions. There is not a woman out there who is all "Hmm...I want an abortion, but I've totally forgotten what it is an abortion does to me! I think it's something like getting a tooth pulled, but I'm not sure, and my doctor completely refuses to tell me what's up! If only the government would mandate that somebody inform me of what's going on."
And I'm seeing some good coverage of and analysis of that ideology in liberal news coverage, which is great.
What I'm not seeing is liberal media making sure that the public thoroughly understands what a mandatory ultrasound entails. My father did not, and he has two daughters, one of whom was born in the 80s to a 33-year-old woman, who was then considered "old" for childbirth, and thus had ultrasounds and the like. When we last talked about this, he said "I'd tell them 'hey, you can't put that goop on my stomach without a good reason!'"
I exchanged a look with his wife, who has a grown son.
"Dad?" I said. "Just so you know, first-trimester ultrasounds don't involve putting jelly on your stomach. They're not external."
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"They're, uh, internal," I said. "Internal. It, um, goes...inside."
My father caught on and blanched.
Let me say quite clearly here what I could not bring myself to articulate explicitly to my father: first-trimester ultrasounds are done by inserting a wand into the pregnant woman's vagina. When you mandate ultrasounds for women seeking abortions when they are doing so during the first trimester of pregnancy, the safest and cheapest time to get an abortion, you are requiring them to have a dildo-shaped object put into their vagina for no medical reason at all, whether or not they want it.
Do you know what we call it in every other context when a woman is forced to have something put in her vagina whether she wants it or not, or is extorted into agreeing to have something put in her vagina?
We call it rape.
I've heard some people say that hey, having an abortion requires that the doctor or nurse or midwife put instruments into your vagina anyway, so what's the difference?
What's the difference between somebody putting something in your vagina at your request in order to do something that you want them to do, and somebody putting something in your vagina because some guys in the legislature force them to, when it has no connection to anything you want?
Do I really need to answer that?
Be aware of this, and bring it up every single time someone suggests that mandatory ultrasounds are an OK compromise for us to make.