trans-vaginal ultrasound for no medical reason - Virginia, anti-choice

[MitchieInge]

(and other states I think) is there a thread about this already?

This Bill is supposedly to establish gestational age. It will have other positive and negative effects. I am concerned about the negative effects. State mandated negative effects. It may not directly affect me, however it is a useful exercise because you can bet that the likes of Dorries are watching this and honing their arguments.

Why would a virgin/celibate woman who has been raped and knows exactly when that was need a scan to establish gestational age? Why would a woman who has had sex once in the past 9 months need to establish gestational age?

I like to keep asking why when things don't make much sense to me.

There's a heavy element of "I don't believe her" in there too.

Chibi - tv scans will be used instead of abdominal scans when medically necessary. It's the scan itself which is of concern, not the fact it might end up being a tv one, surely? Surely women beingmade to view the fetus is the massive issue with this legislation and not the means?

Aye - the scans themselves would in all likelihood be happening anyway prior to the abortion, as they do in the UK. The issue is with women being made to look at the scan images.

Yes thats what it is because everyone can know what is going on inside their bodies at all times with no need for scanning.

No-one ever has a missed miscarriage and thinks that they are still pregnant, no-one ever has an ectopic. Thats right.

i do think legislatively spelling out the need for the scans to be tv is a particular coup de grace which has nowt to do with medical need, this could be left to the discretion of medical personnel

i agree that the main issue is all the extras - listening to the heartbeat, having to see the scans etc. which is done for no other reason than to restrict choice

Actually, they aren't being made to, I don't think. At least not in this Bill. That's a Texas thing.

I'm not really not that exercised about scans that are medically advised. As you say, it's the attitude of punishment and a woman not knowing her own mind and body that is disgusting. As if women don't know what an abortion is. It would have been possible to see this Bill in isolation and not think there was anything more in it. But in conjunction with the personhood one, the motives of the legislators are much clearer.

The article that blackcurrants posted is a good one, if anyone missed it.

If the purpose of the bill were for the betterment of women's reproductive health, it would say so.

"i do think legislatively spelling out the need for the scans to be tv is a particular coup de grace which has nowt to do with medical need, this could be left to the discretion of medical personnel"

It doesnt. You have been repeatedly told that it doesnt. Why do you persist in saying that it does?

Iirc, most abortions are undertaken at less than 9 weeks gestation. How likely is it that an abdominal scan will detect the heartbeat at that stage? Genuine question.

My earliest scan was at 7 weeks, and was abdominal and demonstrated the fetal heart.

Interesting site for sexual and reproductive health research for those interested in the broader picture.

OK, 1 of 1. Think we might need a bigger sample size

Absolutely

2 of 2 - had a scan at 7 weeks due to spotting - heartbeat was detectable.

was too early to date though - they could only give a guess-timate and i had to come back a few weeks later for a dating scan.

I am reading this thread with my jaw on the floor.

If I am being charitable, I will say: okay, if you don't live in the rabid anti-abortion stew that is the USA, you might think that this is about good practice. If I am being VERY charitable.

But if you do, you see it for what it is - an attempt to prevent women who want a legal medical procedure from getting one.

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/ This site is useful for those who want to find out what it's like on the frontlines of defending women's health. this article might clear up some of the stuff about when TV scans are mandated, when women have to look at the embryo etc.

The thing is, they're not shy about it over here. Anti-abortion politicians are bringing bills to reduce access to abortion because they think abortion is wrong. They say things like "Abortion should be illegal" and everyone claps and cheers. They're on record about why they're doing this. They're chipping away at abortion access, state-by-state, because they can't change the federal law (Roe v. Wade) which made abortion legal without appealing to the supreme court, where they are not certain they will win.

So instead they make it harder for women to get abortions. Case in point: my friend is in her final year of Pharmacy training. She's an intelligent person who lives in a university town in Mississippi. Say, something the size of Derby, maybe. Not an isolated village. Because of the threat of violence against abortion providers, plus straight-jacketing laws by the local council (who are all anti-abortion, it seems) there are no doctors at all in her town who will do an abortion. I posted about this on FB one time and she responded with "I worked out once that if I wanted an abortion I would have to drive over 400 miles, take FOUR days off work (because the place she would drive to has a '24 hour cooling off period', the law which insists women come in from the scan 'and counselling' and then spend 24 hours thinking about it. The clinic itself is of course pro-choice but legally mandated to do this to women) and spend more than $500 on the procedure. Jeez, I can't afford 4 days off work at the BEST of times, to lose 4 days' income AND find $500 upfront is unbelievable!"

Laws like this are about reducing access to abortion. How is this hard to understand?

I'm so relieved because the whole thing made me feel sick and horrible. I didn't even think about why other procedures do not have their best practice guidelines enshrined in law, it didn't cross my mind that there was any such intent. It's so obviously anti-abortion even if you could examine it in isolation, away from that scary social context.

Whilst I agree that sometimes tv scans are medically indicated (I had to have one to rule out an ectopic as my HCG levels weren't rising enough), it's seem utterly inappropriate and immoral to me for the legislature to be dictating medical practice, rather than leaving it to the medics' professional judgment.

The law is horrendously anti-choice, and it does indeed represent part of the US's general drift towards an almost total lack of access to abortion.

But it doesn't tell medics to do transvaginal scans over abdominal scans. I wish posters would stop saying it does.

The issue - and the law itself - is about making women look at the scan image and hear the fetal heartbeat, with the aim of their 'seeing the light'. It's not about intentionally invading women by using transvaginal scans over abdominal ones.

it is about more than that muslin - it is also apart of upping the game more and more so that more and more clinics (private obviously) give up and close therefore lowering an already abysmal provision.

Agreed SaF, the law is genuinely shocking and awful - I'm just getting vexed by the focus on the use of tv scans; linking them to historic police use of them is unnecessary and no wonder ToothbrushThief felt the need to defend their use in her profession, they are a vital tool in lots of scenarios, here and in the US. The method of scan is such a minor component of a law aimed at making women change their mind - which as someone pointed out upthread, doesn't even work. Women who see the image of the fetus prior to abortion don't change their mind, but it is unnecessarily traumatic for them. Scans prior to abortion happen in the UK - both abdominally and transvaginally - but the woman isn't made or even asked to look.

I think that the focus on TV or not TV does have its place in the case of this particular Bill. I think the detail of all Bills like this are important because just focusing on choice/no choice doesn't work - the no choice people want no choice and no abortion. There is no argument about abortion that will change their mind. Especially not the men. Saying "hang on, do you realise that the effect of this Bill will be X, Y or Z in practice?" has more chance of convincing the floating/apathetic voter/legislator. Of course, it would be lovely if "You do realise that women are human and therefore should have rights over what happens to their body?" would cause a shift in thinking.

I am not saying that TV scans will be done over abdominal. I have been trying to find out in what scenario they will be used in a Bill that is being put forward to legally establish gestational age via scans alone. Or why any scan is being legally mandated to do that, actually. I think I'm right in saying (but not checked) that rape in Virginia includes penetration with an object without consent and I think that's why the TV thing is a particularly big issue in this particular case. If a woman knows the date of conception yet is being legally made to have a TV scan (because at early stages of pregnancy or with a high BMI it easier to hear the heartbeat of the feotus), then that is legally and personally problematic, particularly if thepregnancy is a result of rape. Not to mention the "Do you want to hear the heartbeat (OF THE ICKLE BABY YOU ARE ABOUT TO KILL)?" phraseology.

No-one on the thread has said TV scans will be compulsory.
No-one has said they will be used instead of abdominal scans, when abdominal scans will do just as well.

I just have a real horror of a girl or woman who has been raped, being told that she cannot have an abortion unless she submits to a TV scan, if she is someone for whom (for whatever reason) an abdominal scan does not give the required information. There are some situations where even if you wait things will not change and you don't want to be waiting too long for an abortion.

I think there are a lot of problems with this bill - the background in this state, the other bills going on show the motivation of this bill. The idea that women will have to pay for these scans. The changes in legislation meaning most clinics offering abortions will have to close. The idea that the next step to this bill will be that women must view the scan / have it described / listen to the heartbeat.

The whole thing is horrendous. And I do have a problem with the prospect of rape victims having to go through all these hoops and, yes, the possibility that they might have to have something inserted into their vagina in order to obtain an abortion.

I agree totally with everything Blackcurrants just said.

This law is being passed by people who are anti-abortion. It is clearly intended to make it even more difficult for a woman to exercise her federal accorded right to abortion, than it already is.

This is an entirely different political kettle of fish to the UK.