‘Rick Perry’s Texas: State-Sanctioned Rape of Women’ by @deaniemills
A guest post at Angry Black Lady from @deaniemills:
At the time this bill was being debated and passed, the Texas media simply reported that women would be required to get a sonogram if they wanted an abortion. As a Texas woman, I wasn’t pleased about that but I wasn’t rendered apoplectic the way I was today when I found out that the sonogram which is required is actually a ‘TRANS-VAGINAL’ procedure.
I have had a trans-vaginal sonogram. My gynecologist requested it when, during a pelvic exam and yearly pap smear, she thought she might have encountered a uterine tumor, and we needed to find out for sure. Of course, I agreed. In a trans-vaginal sonogram, first of all, you have to go without urinating for hours in advance so that the image is more clear. This is extremely uncomfortable. It means that you have to show up at the hospital, take off your clothes, put on a flimsy gown, and climb up onto the table while, at the same time, urgently feeling the need to urinate.
Then, they shove that sonogram wand UP YOUR VAGINA and dig it around in there while you try frantically not to pee on the technician. It is painful. It is uncomfortable. It is embarrassing. In my case, I had a male technician, and a female nurse did not accompany him into the sonogram room. Now, I must say that he was incredibly kind and very professional, but it was a STRANGE MAN who was sticking a COLD WAND up into my vagina and poking it around inside of me while he looked at the computerized images on the screen and I ground my teeth to keep from wetting myself.
‘The law establishes new ways to shame and humiliate women,’ said Karen Hildebrand, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood, West Texas,’ but does nothing to protect women and teens from unintended pregnancies.’