The Oklahoma Senate approved several bills Monday that opponents say would make it more difficult or uncomfortable for women to get abortions, including one that would require women seeking the procedures early in their pregnancies to undergo an invasive form of ultrasound…. One of the laws headed to the governor would require doctors to use a vaginal probe in cases where it would provide a clearer picture of the fetus than a regular ultrasound. Doctors have said this is usually the case early in pregnancies, when most abortions are done.
“You’re going to force someone to undergo an invasive medical procedure,” objected state Sen. Andrew Rice, D-Oklahoma City, who voted against the bill. “You have to invasively put an instrument inside the woman. This could be your 15-year-old daughter who was raped.”
Anti-choice activists spent most of the last decade railing against late-term abortions. No one could’ve predicted that they would have a problem with early-term abortions too.
What most anti-choice activists have a problem with—almost all of them motivated by our sex-hating, woman-hating religious “traditions”—is sexually active women, period, whether they’re using birth control or not, whether some seek to terminate their pregnancies early or late. They want to punish sexually active women. They want to deny women access to the life-saving HPV vaccine, they want to deny women access to birth control, they want to deny women access to abortion services. And when they can’t outright deny women access to abortion—and for now they can’t—they will do all they can to make sure obtaining an abortion is a humiliating and traumatizing ordeal.
Because they hate women.
It seems to me that forcing a woman to allow someone to put an instrument inside her vagina is the very definition of rape.
I don’t know, I think the rape kit that would/should have been taken would have been more intrusive than a vaginal ultrasound. It’s not unusual for this form of ultrasound to be used before an abortion, Oregon’s Planned Parenthood will do the same to determine whether a surgical abortion is necessary or whether RU-486 may be more appropriate.
This is probably moot, though. Is the abortion pill even legal in Oklahoma?
I should add, this doesn’t take away for Dan’s larger point. These people are assholes.
Jesus fucking christ Oklahoma, that sounds like state-sponsored rape by foreign object.
I fully realize that there are circumstances where this ultrasound procedure is warranted and a woman might choose to undergo it. In an instance where it is not medically necessary, forcing a woman to undergo it, in order to get a legal medical procedure, is creeping pretty close to violating the Geneva Conventions.
I used to hear that the reason Kansas was so windy was because Oklahoma sucks.
No, the reason Texas doesn’t fall into the Gulf of Mexico is because Oklahoma sucks.
“No one could’ve predicted that they would have a problem with early-term abortions too.”
um, what? pretty sure everyone could have predicted that.
Main Entry: sar·casm
1 : a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain
2 a : a mode of satirical wit depending for its effect on bitter, caustic, and often ironic language that is usually directed against an individual b : the use or language of sarcasm
I know the definition of sarcasm. Unfortunately, knowing the definition doesn’t help me identify it when it’s right in front of me. Not everyone’s awesome at doing that, ya know?
Awwwww, don’t call it hating.
Call it “The Handmaid’s Tale” LARPing