Last May I posted about the new Texas Law requiring women to have an extended sonogram prior to undergoing an abortion procedure during which the administering technician (not always a doctor) locates and describes in detail the current state of the fetus's anatomy, including organs and limbs. She also has to be provided audio of the heartbeat if it is audible.
Opponents of abortion, such as Karen Garnett of the Catholic Pro-Life Committee of the Diocese of Dallas, argue that this information is needed to educate the pregnant woman to understand the "separate uniqueness of that life before they make that decision." (attribution - the Wall Street Journal, "Perry Condemns Court Ruling on Sonogram Law," Sept. 1, 2011)
Here's the thing: the regular time at which women undergo a sonogram as part of standard prenatal care to check for correct organ development and anatomy of the fetus is at 18 - 20 weeks gestation. Prior to that, the images are unreliable. If you are fortunate enough to live in Texas and have medical insurance and have access to thorough pre-natal care where you live, you'll receive your first ultrasound around 8 weeks just to check that there is a gestational sac, that there's a heartbeat, that the embryo is favorably positioned in the uterus, that the placenta is developing. Not to examine the organs and limbs.
But approximately 90% of abortions happen before 12 weeks.1
Early in pregnancy, the sonogram is performed not with the swipe across the belly like you see on TV, but with a transvaginal probe, usually described as a "wand", because transabdominal ultrasounds don't provide a reliable image early on. This "wand" is large and long, and although one website advised the patient might feel "some pressure", the procedure is painless, it assuringly tells us.
I'm here to tell you, when the technician handling the wand is trying to get a good image of the fetus, there is a lot of forceful angling and jamming. Imagine having your tonsils examined by reaching up through your pelvis.
Receiving a sonogram prior to an abortion is standard medical procedure, to confirm the presence and location of the embryo. Receiving a transvagingal sonogram to examine and confirm the organ development of an early pregnancy (<12 weeks) is not standard medical procedure either for an abortion or for regular prenatal care. The procedure is usually performed by a technician, not a medical doctor. The anatomical information available at this early stage is sketchy at best, even for a doctor. And the physical trauma caused to the woman to attempt to obtain this information - I'll let your imagination take you there. Personally, I'm reminded of torture procedures favored by The Inquisition.
I understand the tragedy of abortion. I really do. But writing a law to require an extended, painful and humiliating procedure that is of no medical value is no way to achieve a reduction in abortions. Was there a companion law for women who choose life to also receive adequate prenatal care, including regular sonograms, for free regardless of insurance? Of course not. If you want adequate prenatal care in Texas, apparently you have to consider having an abortion.
And for those callous few who believe that a woman considering an abortion should experience the aggressive probing below as some sort of punishment for her behavior, clearly you have some other agenda at work beside protecting the sanctity of life.
I come from a decidedly pro-life, Catholic upbringing. My parents oppose abortion, but when I was pregnant with my second child at age 39, we all collectively held our breath for several weeks until we got past all of the chromosomal screens. Whether to proceed with the pregnancy if there had been evidence of a likely chromosomal abnormality was a very private decision that I shared with my family. Now, apparently, Karen Garnett, Rick Perry, and Greg Abbott (the Texas Attorney General) have pulled up chairs in the living room to weigh in with their own opinions on what decision I should make in this very private matter. Except they have the force of the law on their sides.
Fortunately, the Center for Reproductive Rights challenged the Texas law as unconstitutional in federal court and the judge (notably a George H.W. Bush appointee) agreed that the law went too far. He was okay with requiring a sonogram, but not with legally forcing specific speech between medical caregivers and their patients.
Locally, much of the response is complaining about a New York-based non-profit interfering with Texans' right to govern themselves as they please. The same arguments were made by southern states opposed to civil rights activists invading their borders to support desegregation. Like it or not folks, the Constitution is a bright-line federal law that the states don't get to cross. Requiring individuals who disagree with you to perform specific acts of speech to advance your own ideological agenda is not something you get to do in America. And be glad that that's the law, because some day the people in control of the Legislature may be people with whom you wildly disagree, and you won't want a law on the books that says its okay for them to legally require you to perform specified speech to advance their ideological agenda, either.
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1 Measuring gestational age is difficult due to the differences in whether the count is taken from the first day after the last menstrual cycle or from actual implantation of the fertilized egg: "Abortion statistics are flawed by the lack of consistency in reporting gestational age. Several methods are generally used, and the number of abortions occurring before 12 weeks changes considerably depending upon the method used to determine gestational age. Pregnancy can be measured from the beginning of last menstruation or from fertilization, which is 14 days after the 1st day of the last menstrual period. Neither method accurately records pregnancy as determined by specialists in embryology and fetal development. Pregnancy actually begins with implantation, which begins 6-7 days after fertilization and ends 10-14 days later. Completion of fertilization and implantation occurs as much as 28 days after the 1st day of the last menstrual period. A report of an 8-week pregnancy is actually 6 weeks from fertilization and 4-5 weeks from implantation. The Centers for Disease Control and other abortion data collecting agencies use the 1st day of the last menstrual period. Statistics generally show that 50% of abortions occur before 8 weeks of gestation and 90% by 12 weeks. When gestation is considered at fertilization, 78% of abortions occur under 9 weeks, while 52% of abortions under 9 weeks are performed with data beginning at the 1st day of the last menstrual period. For abortions occurring under 12 weeks, 95% beginning at fertilization and 90% occur at the 1st day of the last menstrual period. 2/1000 vs. 5/1000 abortions occur under 20 weeks for data beginning at fertilization vs. at the onset of the last period. It is important to report abortion data accurately and to specify the method used to determine the gestational time period." From the U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institute of Health, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1526273.
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