Disappeared News

“It’s not a choice to be made at a distance by elected officials with an ideological axe to grind, little medical knowledge and a belief that it’s acceptable to require doctors to put unnecessary instruments inside women’s bodies in an effort to achieve in practice what they can’t constitutionally pass into law: an end to abortion.”

We seem, as a society, to require that we be at war against something. But a war against women? The term seems accurate. The insurgency, however, has been slow in gathering strength.

Several states have passed laws mandating transvaginal ultrasound for women contemplating abortion.

But while many people weighed in on the mandate and its emotional weight for women forced to endure it, few women — with the notable exception of Carolyn Jones, who wrote about her encounters with the mandatory ultrasound law in Texas — wrote about what it’s like to go through one. Rather, quietly, woman after woman told me about having a transvaginal ultrasounds in other, medically-necessary contexts: to identify ovarian cysts, to help explain painful menstrual cycles and rule out cancer. All of them thought forcing women to undergo unnecessary transvaginal ultrasounds to prove a political point about abortion was horrific; none of them wanted to go on the record about what it was like to have an ultrasound wand inserted into their bodies.

[Raw Story, I had a transvaginal ultrasound: My perspective on the mandate that touched off 2012′s War On Women, 4/17/2012]

So Raw Story executive editor Megan Carpentier decided to undergo the procedure herself.

The story includes a video that has had surprisingly few views. No, it’s not about cute cats, nor will it go viral any time soon.

What has our country come to? The world is watching, and not admiring, what has become of American democracy.

Permalink posted by Larry @ 4/17/2012 10:43:00 AM