Last Thursday night, former Clemson wide receiver and real estate salesman Jeffrey D. Duncan of South Carolina's 3rd Congressional District, encompassing nine rural counties in western South Carolina, introduced a Bill in the House of Representatives that would require every woman in the United States of America to undergo, by law, a forced ultrasound and to be further prodded by her doctor to view it before being granted permission to terminate her pregnancy.
Duncan's Bill, which by its nature only applies to women, is co-sponsored by 10 Republican men of similar backgrounds and follows last week's failed attempt by Republicans to outlaw all abortions after 20 weeks except those resulting from rapes actually reported by women to the police. Unlike that bill, this one currently has no female Republican co-sponsors.
The full text of the Bill has yet to be released; however its description in the Congressional Record, "[A Bill]- To ensure that women seeking an abortion receive an ultrasound and the opportunity to review the ultrasound before giving informed consent to receive an abortion," is identical, word-for-word, to the 'Heartbeat Informed Consent Act," introduced last year by Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN-6). Despite the deliberately misleading language in both Bills suggesting that the intent is to merely provide "an opportunity" for women to review the mandatory ultrasound they are subjected to, the Bachmann Act contained in its final text the following language mandating not only the ultrasound procedure, but also effectively forcing the woman to view it on a screen and forcing the doctor to describe what it shows:
EC. 3402. REQUIREMENT OF INFORMED CONSENT.
``(a) Requirement of Compliance by Providers.--Any abortion
provider in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, who knowingly
performs any abortion, shall comply with the requirements of this
title.
``(b) Performance and Review of Ultrasound.--
``(1) Requirement.--If an ultrasound is performed on a
woman by an abortion provider (or the provider's agent) prior
to having any part of an abortion performed, the abortion
provider (acting directly or through the provider's agent)
shall--
``(A) ensure that any agent of the provider
performing the ultrasound is a qualified agent;
``(B) during the performance of the ultrasound,
display the ultrasound images (as described in
paragraph (2)) so that the pregnant woman may view the
images; and
``(C) provide a medical description of the
ultrasound images of the unborn child's cardiac
activity, if present and viewable.
This is the equivalent of forcing a woman into a chair, strapping her down, taping her eyelids open and positioning her head in front of a screen. Even if, as the recently ousted Republican governor of Pennsylvania Tom Corbett opined, a woman has the option of
"closing her eyes," the doctor is required to intone characteristics of the fetus into her ears, under penalty of losing his/her license and being assessed up to a $100,000 fine for the "first offense." There is no medical purpose here except to degrade the woman and shame her into not having the abortion that certain Republican men don't think she should be allowed to have. While the laws contain coy language indicating they should not be construed to "force" a medical provider to comply, the threat of a career-ending fine and loss of licensure is the cudgel to ensure that is exactly what happens. And, in fact, Republicans
freely admit it doesn't matter that a woman may not want to listen:
Lawmakers have said requiring narrated ultrasounds would provide crucial information to women making an irrevocable decision, even if they chose to avert their eyes and not listen to the explanation of the displayed fetus images.
Mr. Duncan's career in the U.S. Congress is not particularly notable for anything. Elected in 2011, he has
expressed the belief that President Obama's birth certificate is falsified, that the President is not an American citizen, and that Congress should spend its time investigating this. In 2012 he
participated in "Chick Fil-A Appreciation day" in which persons opposed to same sex marriage ate chicken sandwiches to emphasize their solidarity with that chain's corporate position against gay couples. He
labeled Dianne Feinstein, now in her 23rd year in the US Senate, a "traitor" for releasing the findings of her own Senate Committee tasked to investigate the CIA's use of torture. Asked to elaborate, he provided this glimpse into his thought process:
“It ties in to CIA thing and it ties in to Cuba, in that our guys overseas working in foreign relations or in the military our less safe because of bad actors could simply take somebody hostage and hold them until the American government normalizes relations and bargains for their release.”
He believes ISIS may be
infiltrating the US through the Mexican border. His
views on immigration are, predictably, vile and paranoid:
“It’s kind of like having a house — and you’re not homeowners, a lot of folks in this room, but your Mom and Dads are — taking the door off the hinges and allowing any kind of vagrant, or animal, or just somebody that’s hungry, or somebody that wants to do your dishes for you, to come in. And you can’t say, ‘No you can’t come in.’ And you can’t say, ‘No you can’t stay all night.’ Or ‘No you can’t have this benefit of using my deodorant.’ All those things. We’re giving those benefits away, which we earn as citizens of this nation, of being legalized citizens.”
Other than that his legislative career is remarkable for sponsoring
eight separate bills "[T]o reduce temporarily the rate of duty on certain machinery for molding unvulcanized rubber for tubeless radial tires." He is rated at the extreme end of the GOP's conservative spectrum, a fact that he highlights for his narrow (and, let's be clear, narrow-minded) constituency.
In short, he's a dull-witted racist tasked with generating hot button press for the Republican base, a willing cog in the GOP machinery that set him up to do whatever it is the hedge funds and corporations that control the party want him to. It's easy to laugh off someone like this, easy to ignore him. But the problem is that his stupidity and misogynist attitudes are now aimed at all of the women in the U.S. Not just women in their childbearing years now, but all women just coming of age.
The best and most comprehensive research shows that over 98% of women who are "forced" to undergo ultrasounds before being granted "permission" to terminate their pregnancies go through the procedure anyway. They are not "dissuaded" by a mythical "maternal bonding" with a weeks-old fetus. In those states where ultrasounds are required by law prior to the procedure, only 42% of women actually elect to view them. They too are not "dissuaded" from the decision as to what they choose to do with their own bodies. For many, having to listen to a doctor recite a mandatory litany describing the procedures is simply a horrific, totally unnecessary experience, whether the termination of pregnancy is desired or simply unavoidable:
When she arrived at Planned Parenthood, the doctor who was to perform the abortion first performed an ultrasound, as ordered by law — despite the fact that it was Jones’ third ultrasound of the day. He also had to describe in detail her baby’s anatomy. “It felt barbaric to have to listen to a description of a baby I had so badly wanted,” says Jones, who is 35. “I could barely breathe.”
Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath, pledging to do no harm. Yet it’s tough to argue that forcing Jones to look at and listen to the description of a baby she would never rock or cuddle didn’t cause her psychological harm. The doctor must have known this; he apologized to Jones and tried to minimize her distress. “I am so sorry,” she says he told her, “but if I don’t do this, I could lose my license.”
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecoogists has
repeatedly denounced these measures for what they are--an effort by conservative Republican men to harass, embarrass and humiliate women under a hypocritical and bogus veneer of "respect for life":
This bill is about government mandates, not patient rights. This bill is not about a woman’s right to know all of the medical information before she makes a decision about a treatment plan or procedure. Women already have that right. As health professionals, we have a legal, professional and ethical obligation to share with the patient all relevant information about the range of health care choices that are available, the benefits and risks of treatments, and to respect the patient’s decision. There is no evidence to suggest that doctors are not complying with this obligation prior to performing abortions. This bill is demeaning and disrespectful to the women of our state, and insulting to the doctors and nurses who care for them.
There is no other medical procedure that carries with it a legislative mandate of this magnitude, or that seeks to re-write the doctor /patient relationship in such a skewed manner. No other medical procedure receives anything close to the disproportionate exercise of raw power of one sex over the other.
Perhaps in the dim recesses of his mind, Duncan believes he'll never have to face any consequences of the way he and his Tea Party companions treat women by these abusive, intrusive laws, because he knows they're not likely to survive even the Republican-dominated Senate and they will surely be vetoed by President Obama. That shouldn't be an excuse to ignore Duncan and his Republican friends for what they are: woman-hating bullies.