Ultrasound Requirements and the Battle Over Abortion
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-02-22/ultrasound-requirements-and-battle-over-abortion
The Virginia legislature has approved a bill requiring women to undergo an ultrasound and 24-hour waiting period before having an abortion. Virginia's governor had expressed support for the bill but appeared to back off following protests. If signed into law, clinics would be required to ask women if they wanted to see the sonogram. Seven other states have some kind of ultrasound requirement. Supporters hope seeing an image of a fetus will make women change their mind about terminating their pregnancy. Critics say it's an effort to shame and harass women who have a legal right to an abortion. Ultrasounds and the abortion battle.
Guests
Carol Tobias
president, National Right to Life Committee.
Karen Tumulty
national political reporter, The Washington Post.
Nancy Keenan
president of NARAL, Pro-Choice America.
Comments
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How is forcing women to have procedures they don’t want different than forcing religious institutions to provide insurance for contraception they oppose?
"transvaginal Ultra Sound"
I thought the law required a transvaginal ultrasound not what is shown in the picture on your website.
I hope it was clarified in the show the type of ultrasound we are taking about.
Thanks
Hina
This is an incredibly important show discussing issues in depth that are hard to find elsewhere. I so miss discussions that feature both sides of an issue. You provide such good journalism...thank you Diane Rehm and your staff!
What information is the ultrasound intended to convey? Do we expect women seeking abortions to be surprised to learn that they are, in fact, pregnant?
It is a specious argument to bring up women's regrets or pain after having an abortion as a reason to argue for preventing this service from being offered. People make hard choices all the time--like ending a relationship for instance--and have regrets and pain afterwards. Abortion is not a black and white choice, but often the better choice despite the pain.
The ONLY thing that should ever matter is the personal belief of the woman. No one else! If a woman does not want to have a child, she should never be forced to. To say that women regret having abortions is only one side of the story, I know many women who have no regret whatsoever and seeing the ultrasound didn't make any difference. They made sound, educated decisions based on their own circumstances in life and no one has the right to take those choices away from them.
What is a life if it has no quality? There are already too many unwanted children in the system, too many babies that aren't being adopted, and too much of a financial drain on society for low SES mother's who had no choice but to have children due to the lack of access to birth control or abortion.
Get out of my uterus
really, I am a grown woman,
my Golly, why the love for the unborn, yet no love for the the 40 year old guy down the street who can't pay his mortgage
no love for the living
what kind of religion is that ?
Leaving the womens' rights issue alone for a moment, I am not sure the propornents of Virginia's Law have thought through the logical conclusion of declaring that a fertilized egg is a "person." Taken to its logical extreme, this would require the appointment of separate legal counsel for every pregnant woman charged with a crime. It would require a Habeous Corpus petition be filed on behalf of the fetus of every pregnant woman inmate in any of Virginia's state or local prisons since a "person" would be being held in prison without due process. Since there is some scientific evidence that many pollutants cause an increase in birth defects, a class action law suit could be brought on behalf of all unborn "persons" against any company emitting such pollution.
Getting back to the womens' rights issue, this law could mean that woman who was pregnant and went rock climbing could potentially be charged with endangering the welfare of a child. Or any woman who smoked, or drank alcohol or who was stopped for speeding. Since the local district attorney (usually a man) has complete charging discretion, this could put any pregnant woman at risk of facing a variety of criminal charges for doing anything that arguably cause harm to a fetus.
It's a bad law no matter how you view it. Steve Shahan, Tully, NY
again how can one of your guest claim she knows it rarely happens that planned parenthood doesnt encourage women to keep their babies?? BS
Amen!!! I had my abortion at 18. No regrets whatsoever! I went on to have two very planned and very loved children, when I was married and was emotionally and financially mature enough to raise a child the way I believe all children should be raised!!
NO child should be an "oops, oh well". No child should be born unwanted, possibly living a life of poverty.
Carol keeps stating that the vaginal ultrasound is ALREADY done in most procedures. If that is the case, WHY would we need a mandate?
Good idea but we should give that information out in middle school! And we could add that, "If you don't study math and science, you will end up like this," and show a picture of an American man wearing an old football sweatshirt living under a bridge while smartly dressed young married couples walk by pushing Italian baby strollers.
Awwwww poor conservatives have been forced into addressing this when they'd rather spew rhetoric about bombing Iran or how Obama is a secret Muslim.
My occupation is sonographer, and I work in a hospital setting. I have seen a couple of cases, where patients have believed they had an abortion and have come to the ER for problems and have found out they have an ectopic pregnancy. This is one reason why ultrasound is medically necessary. Also, many women's dates are off (and often way off), again another instance that an ultrasound is necessary prior to the procedure. About the argument of transvaginal ultrasound being painful, most women do not experience this as being a "painful" procedure (I have had numerous of these ultrasounds myself and I never could say that they were painful), there may be a little discomfort. Most women tell me a PAP smear is more uncomfortable than having a transvaginal ultrasound.
Does anyone know who has to pay for the ultrasound? I had one in 2007 for ovarian cysts and WITH insurance it was quite expensive.
Wonderfuly stated!!
If abortion doctors routinely perform ultrasound, why are they not sharing the information with their patients? I humbly suggest that we stop talking about requiring ultrasound and focus on requiring doctors to treat their patients with respect and provide full disclosure. This may come as a surprise to some, but a decision based upon less than all of the available information is no decision at all. When will grown women stop allowing men to thus make decisions for them?
My occupation is sonographer, and I work in a hospital setting. I have seen a couple of cases, where patients have believed they had an abortion and have come to the ER for problems and have found out they have an ectopic pregnancy. This is one reason why ultrasound is medically necessary. Also, many women's dates are off (and often way off), again another instance that an ultrasound is necessary prior to the procedure. About the argument of transvaginal ultrasound being painful, most women do not experience this as being a "painful" procedure (I have had numerous of these ultrasounds myself and I never could say that they were painful), there may be a little discomfort. Most women tell me a PAP smear is more uncomfortable than having a transvaginal ultrasound.
With regards to women being depressed for the rest of their lives after having an abortion and other problems such as alcoholism and drug abuse.
There are plenty of people who suffer from these mental health issues without having an abortion. I think a discussion about the women who have depression issues, alcoholism and drug abuse because of the guilt they feel because they can not take care of their children is a valid discussion.
You can not legislate for every possible situation that will occur.
For every argument on the one side of this issue, there is an equal and opposite compelling argument to support the opposition.
Roe V Wade is a law and should remain so.
I find it interesting that once the economy showed signs of recovery, the issues that moved into the forefront are the social ones. I believe, if the economic numbers were not going in the right direction, Mitt Romney would not have the battle with Santorum we are currently seeing.
i can say that any woman who purports to assume that every woman won't regret having the procedure they are WRONG.
teenagers live in the now and don't realize that there are consequences years down the road.
i made that choice not realizing the ramifications and now i am unable to have children.
feminists need to realize that not every other woman is lockstep with their religion.
Making abortion illegal will never get rid of abortion, it will only put women's lives in danger. Fewer restrictions on abortion actually decreases the demand for it.
Each state that has imposed this requirement defines "rape " as the unwanted penetration of the vagina. That technically makes the legislators who voted for this required procedure and the governor who signed it "rapists" under the laws of the state. They are requiring woman to accept forced penetration or "rape" as defined by the law.
I love how these conservatives rail against abortions but can't wait to throw down the death penalty. Hypocrites.
The pro choice argument is one that politicians think they incorrectly know best, and want to get in the way of choices made between a woman and her doctor. And yet we have national health care laws, made by politicians that think they know best and get in the way of insurance choices made by individuals for the coverage of care made between an individual and their doctor. How can one type of government intrusion be ok, while the other one isn't?
So, as one of the panelists just pointed out, why are contraceptive services getting slapped down by people who claim to be anti-abortion? If the ultimate goal is to reduce the number of abortions, shouldn't we put energy into every reasonable avenue of making that possible?
Thank you to the caller who called out on the whole boogey man of the psychologically damaged woman who has had an abortion. One in three American women get an abortion at some point in their lives. How about we give out an email address for all of the women who have no regrets and are relieved after terminating an unwanted pregnancy?
Why is it that those so concerned about potential children & potential pregnancys do not seemed motivated to address the needs of the children that are here? Does anyone notice that being completely ignored? This conversation is about control, not children because if children were what mattered then there would be more work for education, nutrition, and love for the kids that are here. And I want to personally thank Planned Parenthood for helping me maintain my health with affordable gynocological services. What they do for women is very necessary in our society, we need more groups like this.
"Giving the ultrasound information to women..." is causing so much trouble because she is already informed. She KNOWS she is pregnant, and she KNOWS she doesn't want to be pregnant.
Mandatory ultrasounds is just a veiled means of coercion. And who pays for the extra ultrasound? In the case of a government mandated ultrasound (with waiting period) be paid for by the government, or will women be required to pay for something they don't want?
"Life" begins at fertilization. VIABLE life is a completely different matter.
I've had two medically NECESSARY abortions for ectopic pregnancies. Without ultrasound--abdominal the first, vaginal the second--I could have died. But there is a distinct, if not obvious, difference between DIAGNOSTIC and INVASIVE, coercive ultrasounds.
Get the government out of our bedrooms and vaginas.
just like the politicans , religious leaders are also stepping over a line and over reaching. Freedom to practice your religion does not mean legislating your relgious beliefs to the insurance companies or your privite sector employees. If you religous sector employes really believe in everything their leader teaches they will not use birthcontrol or seek abortions.