Prolonged Eye Contact

keepyourboehneroutofmyuterus:

[TW on the click through link that ilovecharts put on the picture and the words “Transvaginal Ultrasound” below. Takes you to Wikipedia’s “rape” page.]
ilovecharts:

Transvaginal Ultrasound

Once again, I remind everyone that people in Texas are being subjected to this TODAY in order to get their legal abortions.
Mandatory transvaginal ultrasounds are also law in Oklahoma (and North Carolina, I believe, but for which I can’t find a good link). In OK, unlike Texas, it is not being enforced while it’s being challenged in court (it was ruled unconstitutional here in Texas and yet STILL it’s being enforced).
So, yes, It would be terrible if Virginia got a mandatory ultrasound bill. It would be terrible if Pennsylvania got one, too. Or Kentucky. Or Alaska. Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama all require ultrasounds before abortion (though I can’t find anything saying they specifically require transvaginal ultrasounds, though if you are early on in your pregnancy, there is no other option, I imagine. I don’t know. This is all terribly confusing.).
But this isn’t just about Virginia CLEARLY. And this is ALREADY happening.
[Jessica Valenti and Jessica Pieklo sent me this .pdf from Guttmacher that lists what the ultrasound requirements are for each state, though I can’t easily determine still which states demand transvaginal. Making me proud, Texas.]
[Also, I owe Misty Clifton and Melissa McEwan of Shakesville and Hegemommy herself, Jessica Pieklo, much thanks for helping me figure this all out.]
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UPDATE: Dahlia Lithwick knows what’s up. From an interview with NPR:

One thing about the Virginia law that makes it different - other states have ultrasound laws, but most of them can be taken care of what we sort of colloquially call the jelly-on-the-belly ultrasound, the benign one that you see on TV where they squirt a water-based jelly on the mother’s stomach, and then they manipulate the ultrasound from outside.
What’s different about both the Texas and now the Virginia law is that it mandates a level of specificity in the image that really is going to mean that certainly in early pregnancies - and let’s recall 90 percent of abortions happen in early pregnancies - that external ultrasound is not going to give sufficiently detailed information, and the Virginia statute requires the doctor to know what the gestational age is. And that’s where you get this extra layer, which is that it’s going to have to happen through this transvaginal procedure where a probe is actually inserted into the woman’s body through her vagina and then manipulated internally, and so that’s the difference. The Texas and Virginia ultrasound laws can’t be kind of glossed over by saying this happens outside the woman’s body.

[NB: more than just cis women are/will be forced into getting these ultrasounds.]

[TW on the click through link that ilovecharts put on the picture and the words “Transvaginal Ultrasound” below. Takes you to Wikipedia’s “rape” page.]

ilovecharts:

Transvaginal Ultrasound

Once again, I remind everyone that people in Texas are being subjected to this TODAY in order to get their legal abortions.

Mandatory transvaginal ultrasounds are also law in Oklahoma (and North Carolina, I believe, but for which I can’t find a good link). In OK, unlike Texas, it is not being enforced while it’s being challenged in court (it was ruled unconstitutional here in Texas and yet STILL it’s being enforced).

So, yes, It would be terrible if Virginia got a mandatory ultrasound bill. It would be terrible if Pennsylvania got one, too. Or Kentucky. Or Alaska. Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama all require ultrasounds before abortion (though I can’t find anything saying they specifically require transvaginal ultrasounds, though if you are early on in your pregnancy, there is no other option, I imagine. I don’t know. This is all terribly confusing.).

But this isn’t just about Virginia CLEARLY. And this is ALREADY happening.

[Jessica Valenti and Jessica Pieklo sent me this .pdf from Guttmacher that lists what the ultrasound requirements are for each state, though I can’t easily determine still which states demand transvaginal. Making me proud, Texas.]

[Also, I owe Misty Clifton and Melissa McEwan of Shakesville and Hegemommy herself, Jessica Pieklo, much thanks for helping me figure this all out.]

—————————————————

UPDATE: Dahlia Lithwick knows what’s up. From an interview with NPR:

One thing about the Virginia law that makes it different - other states have ultrasound laws, but most of them can be taken care of what we sort of colloquially call the jelly-on-the-belly ultrasound, the benign one that you see on TV where they squirt a water-based jelly on the mother’s stomach, and then they manipulate the ultrasound from outside.

What’s different about both the Texas and now the Virginia law is that it mandates a level of specificity in the image that really is going to mean that certainly in early pregnancies - and let’s recall 90 percent of abortions happen in early pregnancies - that external ultrasound is not going to give sufficiently detailed information, and the Virginia statute requires the doctor to know what the gestational age is. And that’s where you get this extra layer, which is that it’s going to have to happen through this transvaginal procedure where a probe is actually inserted into the woman’s body through her vagina and then manipulated internally, and so that’s the difference. The Texas and Virginia ultrasound laws can’t be kind of glossed over by saying this happens outside the woman’s body.

[NB: more than just cis women are/will be forced into getting these ultrasounds.]