Oklahoma has drafted new laws, which would require a woman to see an ultrasound before an abortion and/or answer questions in a survey about why she is having one.
I favour both of these ideas, as does the woman who helped draft the laws:
“Do they feel they have no other choice? Is it financial? What are the reasons that lead up to that very desperate choice of a woman?” said Republican state Rep. Pam Peterson, who played a key role in drafting both laws.
If you only have one choice, it isn’t really a choice. And these ardent pro-choicers know that when women see their babies on an ultrasound, they tend to not want to kill them. It’s called information, and unless you have a hidden agenda, it shouldn’t be so scary.
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Rebecca adds: Surely we’re the only ones with a hidden agenda, right?
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Andrea adds: Correct, Rebecca. It has been empirically proven that only right wing religious nutbars can ever have a hidden agenda. Pro-choicers on the left came out all clear.
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There is a poll within that article.
“Vote: Should women be forced to answer questions?”
I always love how the pro-life side are FORCING women to carry unwanted children, and are FORCING woman to answer questions.
Are these the 2d or 3d ultrasounds?
The 2d ones are the most medically useful, as they provide the information on internal structure, but look like nothing more than a vague blur to someone without training in how to interpret one. The 3d ones have less medical use, but produce an image instantly recogniseable as very much like a baby to anyone.
“to listen to a doctor talk them through an ultrasound.”
Probably 2d. A 3d would need no doctor to talk through it. I don’t know if you can even do a 3d at the earliest stages, it might not have the resolution.
My main concern is “Another section requires doctors to provide detailed information about complications that arise as a result of the procedure.” It seems that this information comes from the health department, where it would be subject to political meddling. Depending who is in the relivant office at the time, either a pro-choicer could gloss over dangers or a pro-lifer could exagerate even very unlikely or purely hypothetical dangers in the hope of scareing women away from abortion. In such a highly politicised subject, there is just no dependable source to make the judgement of what women should be told.
I’m not too concerned about the questions – they would provide most useful information, if proper procedures to ensure the women remain anonymous were observed. The only reason I might object would be if the questionaire requirement was deliberatly abused as an excuse to overwork clinics and drive away women by making the questions either ridiculously long, loaded or overly stressful. So again, I’d have concerns about political interference in writing them. There isn’t really much a pro-choicer could do with the power to change the survey, but a pro-lifer could easily put in a loaded question like, for example, ‘Have you been informed about the scientific evidence that a first-trimester fetus feels and suffers pain during an abortion procedure?’ The evidence for that claim is actually lacking entirely (I could go on about it at length another time), but just asking such a question places the idea in a readers head regardless of the accuracy of the implied claim.
The only way I can see to achieve a neutral writing of both the information and questions would be to have a pro-life and pro-choice organisation write them together, and require every sentence to be approved by both. It’d result in some very short leaflets, but only the claims that are without doubt accurate could meet with approval from both sides :>
Correction: I have now thought of a way a pro-choicer could abuse control of the questions. Simply turn it around: Rather than try to exagerate the dangers of abortion, try to scare women with stories of pregnancy gone wrong.