Texas Sonogram Law Goes Into Effect; Conservatives Cheer
While I love my Texan heritage, I absolutely abhor this law, and the Bible-thumping throwbacks that run this state. This is nothing but harassment of women, plain and simple. Shame on you bastards.
Caustic. Demeaning. Gratuitous.
Those are the words that Chief Judge Edith Jones of the U.S. Circuit 5th Court of Appeals used in a letter this summer to describe language that lower-court federal Judge Sam Sparks had used in some of his feisty recent orders.
Of course, the same words could be used to describe the state’s new sonogram law, which Jones and the rest of a three-judge appellate panel forced Sparks to enforce this week after overturning his ruling that had found it unconstitutional.
Under the false banner of protecting women’s health, the state law mandates that doctors perform and narrate a medically unnecessary ultrasound to women who are considering abortion. The cruel, coercive exercise is already having a corrosive effect on the rights of women and doctors.