It's true: rape of women—pregant ones, to be exact—is now mandatory in Texas. A panel of federal appellate judges decreed as much this week. Iris Vander Pluym explains it all over at her Perry Street Palace blog:
No doubt much fallout will be seen in the days, weeks, months and years ahead about Texas’s mandatory ultrasound law, which requires doctors to perform invasive and completely unnecessary sonograms on women seeking abortions and then describe what they see, whether doctors or patients desire any of this or not. Immediately after the law was enacted in the spring, opponents sought and obtained on Constitutional grounds an injunction preventing the statute from going into effect. Yesterday, that injunction was overturned on appeal, which means the law may now take effect as soon as Thursday.
By all means please read on...
Vander Pluym notes that, while most of the opposition to the law centered around First Amendment concerns—forcing doctors to disclose info that isn’t medically necessary—she herself is bothered by another insidious aspect.
I have a different concern: that of the State of Texas forcing doctors to rape abortion patients. Yes, rape.
88% of abortions in the United States occur at the gestational stage of 12 weeks or less (pdf). At this point the fetus is so tiny that an ultrasound performed through the woman’s abdomen frequently cannot produce a clear image; thus a transvaginal ultrasound is necessary, as it produces a greatly enhanced image.
She then goes on to describe the invasive "transvaginal ultrasound" process as described by the National Institutes of Health:
You will lie down on a table with your knees bent and feet in holders called stirrups. The health care provider will place a probe, called a transducer, into the vagina. The probe is covered with a condom and a gel. The probe sends out sound waves, which reflect off body structures. A computer receives these waves and uses them to create a picture. The doctor can immediately see the picture on a nearby TV monitor.
So to recap: what we have in Texas now is the medically unnecessary, forcible penetration of a woman’s vagina with a phallus-shaped instrument, without her consent. That is rape.
Vander Pluym says that, tellingly, the Texas law exempts women who have already been raped from the ultrasound requirement.
This should put to bed the lie that that law has anything whatsoever to do with informed consent — unless proponents are seriously going to argue that rape victims are undeserving of “truthful, non-misleading information.” It also puts to bed the lie that the law is not intended to do anything more than punish and violate women whose “crime” is to have sex that results in an unwanted pregnancy: if this is all so harmless and necessary, why on Earth would they exempt rape victims?
It’s because they know it’s traumatizing. They know it’s rape. And they could not be more thrilled about that.
For more on this profound bit of craziness, including some images I'm too timid to post here, read the entire entry on Vander Pluym's Perry Street Palace blog.
And one more thing: as you might expect, one soon-to-be-out-of-the-race-for-GOP-nominee thinks the judges' decision is just peachy: "Gov. Rick Perry also praised today’s ruling, calling it 'a victory for all who stand in defense of life.'". But of course...