Pro-choice groups have been pushing back against a Virginia bill that would require women to undergo ultrasounds before an abortion procedure. The complaints are the ultrasounds are needlessly invasive, not medically necessary, and would be forced on women seeking abortions, even if they don’t want them.
This criticism misses one crucial point: Planned Parenthood policy already requires ultrasounds before abortion procedures.
“That’s just the medical standard,” said Adrienne Schreiber, an official at Planned Parenthood’s Washington, D.C., regional office. “To confirm the gestational age of the pregnancy, before any procedure is done, you do an ultrasound.”
According to Schreiber, Planned Parenthood does require women to give signed consent for abortion procedures, including the ultrasound. But if the women won’t consent to the ultrasound, the abortion cannot take place, according to the group’s national standards.
Schreiber said there are several options at that point. If the woman is uncomfortable with a transvaginal ultrasound, which is more invasive, she can wait until the fetus is large enough to opt for a transabdominal ultrasound.
“But if she’s uncomfortable with a transvaginal ultrasound, then she’s not going to be comfortable with an equally invasive abortion procedure,” Schreiber told me.
Planned Parenthood’s policy undermines a key sticking point for the Virginia legislation. Opponents of the mandatory ultrasound bill say the law would take away a woman’s right to consent to an ultrasound.
“Planned Parenthood gets patient consent. Virginia bill requires ultrasound regardless of consent,” Virginia Delegate David Englin, an opponent of the bill, told me yesterday.
While Planned Parenthood technically does get the patient’s consent, it will not go ahead with the abortion procedure without an ultrasound – which, as it so happens, is virtually the same policy that’s proposed in the Virginia bill.
And YOU miss the crucial point: "If the woman is uncomfortable with a transvaginal ultrasound, which is more invasive, she can wait until the fetus is large enough to opt for a transabdominal ultrasound." AND if this is really "the standard", why are Republicans wasting time making up laws about it? Thanks for pointing out yet again how utterly useless that entire party is.
Because that is PP's policy which can be changed when it becomes politically inconvenient. Passing a law would prevent that.
Has that aways been their policy, or how long has it been? I wonder about this because I heard reports a few years ago of a battle in which people that wanted to show women ultrasounds were strongly, some would say even violently, opposed by pro-choice people. I believe in this case they were 3-d ultrasounds, so I don't know if that was the major hinge, or what. Even extra clinics or trucks that were not related to PP were opposed. I'm thinking, if they were already showing women ultra sounds as a prerequisite, why would someone else offering ultrasounds be met with a battle? I see the mention here of the right to consent, and I don't remember them saying it could not be refused (in the story I heard); if anything, it was something offered for free, and the PP crowd seemed to be trying to withhold information that would change the mind of an abortion-minded woman. That was a long time ago, and I wish I remember more details about it because this seems odd to me. I've NEVER heard this before, from any news source.
It is one thing to *do* the ultrasound and let the medical staff see it — it is entirely another thing to let the mother see it. n nLook at it this way — on a routine physical, do you read your lab results or just listen to what the doctor says about them? Enough said?
Ultrasounds are a routine part of the abortion procedure at Planned Parenthood. It is not required and you are not allowed to show the image of the ultrasound to the patient unless she has consented- she has to check a box on her medical form.
As a spiritual man my opinon of abortion is as follows. In the Bible there is a line where God says, "I knew you when you were in your mother's womb." In another part of the Bible there is the story where Mary the mother of Jesus went to visit Elizabeth?(I cannot remember if that was her name or not), it is said that Elizabeth's baby in her womb(the future John the Baptist) leapt for JOY as Mary approached. I weep as I type this because I believe that this actually did happen. My spiritual intuition tells me that abortion is not a very good idea at all. We should never have gone down this road as a country. I KNOW that one fine day, all the people in the abortion industry are going to be VERY ashamed and embarrassed that they participated in these heinous actions.
Right, they've done so well following the laws on underage pregnancies being reported to the police as statutory rape. They've done so well following laws on parental notification. They say whatever they need to say so they can go on with business as usual. Always have, always will.
If a woman and her medical provider determine that an ultrasound is necessary for any medical procedure she is about to have, I have no problem with that. When legislators — the majority of whom neither have a medical degree nor are physically capable of becoming pregnant due to the fact that they are male — pass legislation that requires an ultrasound for all women in order to get a specific medical procedure, I have a big problem with that. What happened to keeping government out of our lives and out of our health systems? Isn't that what many of these same elected officials have been railing about with regards to Obamacare?
So ripping a baby from her mothers womb is not invasive?