Ultrasound legislation promotes anti-choice agenda
April 16, 2008 10:44:00
by Anna
Web Correspondent
Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota Action Fund
Drive by any Planned Parenthood on a clinic day and you're bound to see protestors waving signs featuring ultrasound images. This is a rather offensive tactic, if you ask me, since it implies that women who are considering abortion do not have good reasons for doing so and can be easily swayed by a muddled image of a late-term fetus (which is also inaccurate since the vast majority of abortions occur during the first trimester).
In a move that seeks to politicize doctors' use of ultrasounds, Florida's House of Representatives approved a bill on April 2 that would require every woman to get an ultrasound and view its results before having an abortion, the obvious hope being that seeing the fetus will persuade a woman to carry her pregnancy to term. Women would also have to pay for the procedure, which can cost upwards of a few hundred dollars. Florida already requires an ultrasound before a second- or third-trimester abortion, but the bill seeks to include early-term abortions, the majority of abortion procedures, in this rule. The bill passed 70-45 in the House, and although it has yet to receive a Senate hearing and Governor Charlie Crist has not publicized his feelings on the issue, the House's overwhelming support is disturbing in and of itself.
The Florida House also passed a fetal homicide bill that essentially defines life as beginning at conception by making it a criminal offense to terminate a pregnancy through an act of violence against a pregnant woman. In this bill, a fetus of any age is considered an "unborn child" and killing the fetus is a homicide, even if the perpetrator did not know the woman was pregnant. First of all, it seems perverse to me to place such importance on the unborn child in legislation concerning violence against a pregnant woman because the emphasis should clearly center on protecting the woman herself. Furthermore, this legislation backs up the ultrasound bill in painting fetuses as human beings with human rights. There is no consensus, scientific or moral, determining when life truly begins, and any legislation providing an answer to this question is promoting a political agenda, not a factual one.
Florida's ultrasound legislation is also akin to a sonogram bill recently passed in South Dakota on February 21. Both the House and Senate passed SB88, which requires abortion providers to ask women if they want to see an ultrasound. South Dakota has been on a roll with its anti-choice legislation lately; earlier in February the state legislature voted against the Birth Control Protection Act, which would have provided easier access to birth control pills for all South Dakota women (see my April 2 blog for more). Under this law, if a woman opts not to get an ultrasound she must sign a statement ensuring that her doctor made the offer.
The fact is that there is no legitimate medical reason for these types of legislation. Florida's legislation has nothing to do with reinforcing women's health, but it has everything to do with promoting a specific political schema that uses an unresolved moral dispute as its basis. In the case of South Dakota, obliging a doctor to offer ultrasound services to an abortion patient is a blatant intrusion on the doctor-patient relationship in which doctors are supposed to offer medical assistance, not moral chastisement, which is exactly what ultrasound requirements amount to.
Trackback: http://www.plannedparenthoodadvocate.org/trackback/334/6zpqNR34/
