With Virginia's hotly-contested new anti-abortion bill expected to soon become law, cutting state aid to poor women seeking abortions and mandating that “transvaginal ultrasounds” be performed on women seeking abortions, Vermont is set to make an ideological shift in the other direction.
On Valentine's Day, a left-leaning Vermont State Senate voted to approve a much-debated mandatory “pro-choice counseling” measure. Gov. Peter Shumlin (D), who has been called “a liberal’s liberal,” is widely assumed to sign the bill into law. This will make Vermont the first state requiring all pregnant women to undergo a counseling session exploring the benefits of terminating a pregnancy. Ironically, abortion is also technically illegal in Vermont due to a pre-Roe v. Wade regulation that is now considered unconstitutional and unenforceable.
While 34 other states have varying compulsory counseling laws in efforts to prevent abortions, Vermont will become the only state ever to officially legislate such encouragement. Sen. Anita Bort (D) was the original sponsor of the groundbreaking, if controversial, law in Montpelier, Vt.
“Every year more than four million babies are born in America,” the never-married, childless Bort said. “I don’t even know where to begin explaining what’s wrong with that. Seriously, how many pregnant young women are making the right decision for themselves and their lives?” She added, “We are not dangerously underpopulated.”
Pursuant to the Governor’s signature, all pregnant women will have to report their condition to local authorities during the first trimester. They must then register for the comprehensive breeding education program. The course, developed by NARAL, was paid for with federal tax dollars from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It will educate women while reminding them of their legal, logical, and moral options and obligations to consider termination of the pregnancy.
“The real tragedy, though, is when nobody talks to these women about their prerogatives,” Bort said. “Nobody has the conversation with them about the damage many or most women are likely doing to themselves and others by forgoing abortion.”
Bort explained the individual three-hour seminar begins with a unit on pregnancy itself, covering the pains, literal and figurative, of spending the better part of a year in the pregnant condition. From a sore back and hemorrhoids, to hot flashes in tandem with emotional swings, the realities of pregnancy will not be sugar-coated.
An expert from Planned Parenthood will review the statistical realities of pregnancy. Afflicted women will be asked to consider the fact that every year more than 500,000 women die during pregnancy or child birth, according to the World Health Organization. The hurdles, though, only begin with a successful delivery. In the United States alone, nearly one million women will suffer from post-partum depression each year.
This potentially and dramatically life-altering seminar will include discussion of the idealistic, unrealistic depictions of pregnancy that permeate popular culture. Television sitcoms, for instance, often portray the birthing process as an intense few minutes immediately followed by a natural sense of unadulterated joy with optimistic mirth. That feeling is completely unrelated to facts of life, it will be explained. After many excruciating hours, the new mother is handed the most recent addition to a planet already occupied by 7 billion other individuals. And, for better or for worse, the Hearts and Minds campaign to end American poverty reported that in our country, “[e]veryday 2,660 children are born into poverty; 27 die because of it.”
Growing up in a classic nuclear family is hardly required for an ideal upbringing, but it’s tough to deny it often helps. The Pew Research Center reported in 2010 that more than 40% of American babies are born out of wedlock. It always takes a lot of work to raise a child; it takes a lot more go it alone. Enrollees in Vermont’s program will know it is significantly cheaper to scrape together abortion money, than sufficient cash to support a human life for 18 years.
Highlighting Vermont’s one-of-a-kind orientation session will be informational interviews with women who chose each route; some who went through with it, and some who elected to postpone her family. The expectant mothers will get a chance to hear, first-hand, what happens when a woman is pregnant, and what happens when they bring their pregnancy to term.
“Plenty of women, obviously all the ones who got pregnant on purpose, will want to have the baby,” Bort said. “But half of all pregnancies in this country are unintended ones. And we’re not all Bristol Palin, you know.”
Throughout the entire three-hour program, recordings of a crying baby will be broadcast in the background.