Indiana GOP Pushes Bill to Mandate TWO Invasive Ultrasounds
Republicans in Indiana are not happy with a bill that mandates an invasive transvaginal ultrasound procedure before a woman would be allowed to have an abortion.
They’re not happy because they want to force women to undergo TWO invasive transvaginal ultrasound procedures — before and after: Double Ultrasound Bill in Indiana Passes Out of Senate Committee.
The Indiana state Senate on Wednesday advanced a bill that would require women to undergo an ultrasound procedure both before and after having a medication-induced abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy.
The Senate Health and Provider Services Committee approved Senate Bill 371 on Wednesday by a vote of 7 to 5, sending it to a full vote in the state Senate. The bill, introduced by state Sen. Travis Holdman (R), imposes heavy regulations on clinics and physicians that offer medication abortions, which are generally used to end a pregnancy up to 10 weeks from a woman’s last period. It would require women to be presented with the sound and image of the fetal heartbeat before the abortion and to return for a follow-up ultrasound to ensure that she is no longer pregnant and has stopped bleeding.
Dr. Anne Davis, the consulting medical director for Physicians for Reproductive Health, said the requirement would place an undue burden on women seeking to end their pregnancies. “She can do a blood test at any local facility after an abortion to show that the hormone levels are going down as they should, there’s no medical reason to make her drive back to the abortion clinic and go through another ultrasound,” she said. “This is yet another onerous, medically unnecessary barrier.”
The director of the Indiana chapter of religious fanatic anti-choice group “Right to Life” says, “Hey, just think of it like having sex. What’s the big deal?”
Sue Swayze, the legislative director of Indiana Right to Life, told local radio station WBAA that that goal of the bill is to protect women’s safety and hold abortion clinics to higher health standards. She said she does not understand why it would be a problem to mandate transvaginal ultrasounds.
“I got pregnant vaginally,” she said. “Something else could come in my vagina for a medical test that wouldn’t be that intrusive to me. So I find that argument a little ridiculous.”
If that disgusting little talking point sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the same one used by wingnut ranter Dana Loesch.
