re: #190 bfos

As a pro-choice progressive, let me be maybe the only one here to voice support for this measure. I’d love for there to be a more reasonable discussion on this as I simply don’t understand the backlash, other than just as a knee-jerk reaction to anything that appears to pare back abortion rights (much the same as the instinctive reactions from cons to gay rights, economic stimulus, etc.).

While I may understand being critical of a wand-based ultrasound, first, it’s not clear that the law requires the measure, and second, it’s MUCH less intrusive than the pending abortion.

Regardless of where you stand as pro-life or pro-choice, there is no debating the degree of seriousness involved in the decision to have an abortion. I do believe there is a lot of misunderstanding to the level of development the fetus has undergone prior to many abortions taking place. It makes sense, to me, to make sure the woman knows exactly what she is deciding upon. It does not seem wise to maintain an out-of-site mentality on such a critical decision, regardless of how the pregnancy came about.

That said, I’d be curious how everyone would respond to the law if it explicitly did not include wand-ultrasounds and excluded cases of rape and incest. I’m guessing the twitch reactions would be the same.

It’s not a twitch reaction. The woman who has decided she wants an abortion because she hates the father and is utterly unwilling for the father to have progeny that no woman ever agreed to be a party to, has made up her mind. Maybe she knows, intellectually, what is involved, but she doesn’t want to look at it. She doesn’t want the extra nightmares she reasonably expects would follow.

Should juries in death penalty cases have to watch an execution, stem to stern, and then watch an autopsy, blow by blow slide by slide, before being allowed to vote the death penalty? There’s decisions that are hard enough without skull-fucking the person who’s making the call. You do realize why firing squads have more than one shooter, and some of the rounds issued are blanks?

Maybe you already have seen more than your share of the gutwrenching side of life. Maybe not. But from your writing, I’m guessing, not. Me either, but I’ve seen enough to know that it’s not something anyone should be arbitrarily and capriciously subjected to.