Scary side of Virginia ultrasound law

[browngrl]

Ultrasound is not a toy and it is not a political tool. It is a medical procedure only. I can not stress this enough.

I do endovaginal ultrasound routinely on early pregnancy - it really is the most accurate imaging way to date a pregnancy. Accurate dates are very important in all cases of pregnancy and particularly in the case of abortion - as the method of abortion can vary depending on the gestational stage. It is also very useful to ensure the pregnancy is intrauterine. While I would NEVER EVER force a woman to have an endovaginal ultrasound - I would encourage her to have this procedure as I think the information you get is worth it. If the woman has a high BMI - endovaginal ultrasound may be the only sonographic way to get accurate information. So the bottom line is - I think endovaginal ultrasound is very important but ONLY AS A MEDICALLY INDICATED PROCEDURE.

edited to add: These politicians make me sick.

[Koala]

Every.single.thing. Valsa said. +1

[PBrooke]

I think that this bill is ridiculous and I'm opposed to it in every way, shape and form... but I'm wary of pulling out the rape comparison. The way I see it, the problem with comparing it to rape is two-fold: one, it is a medical procedure and the context is different. There are women who are triggered from routine yearly pap smears, too, but that doesn't mean they're forced. I feel that calling it rape in some way diminishes the trauma and violence of actual rape (I imagine some woman who was beaten within an inch of her life and then someone saying, "I feel your pain. I had to get a transvaginal ultrasound.").

Secondly, I feel that getting caught up in the definition of rape, what is rape and what isn't, just distracts everyone from the real problem: that politicians shouldn't be making these decisions for doctors, that it's intended to make hoops for women to jump through and ultimately attempt to take control of fertility away from women, and finally, that's it's being used as a shaming tool to out-and-out prevent abortion. I feel all these points are abhorrent enough without bringing in the question of rape.

[hathorlive]

I had to have the vaginal ultrasound done due to medical problems and it hurts. I felt contorted and stretched by the procedure and prayed it would stop as soon as possible. My question is will the state be paying for these or will women be forced to pay the expense of the US on top the abortion?

Because all that does is cost the state or make it nearly impossible for most women to afford abortion, which is the point, I'm sure.

Personhood is just stupid. When the little clump of cells can crawl out, get a job and support itself, then it's a F*(&ing person.

[ADoyle90815]

Personhood is just stupid. When the little clump of cells can crawl out, get a job and support itself, then it's a F*(&ing person.

[Rosa]

I had a medical abortion, because after how incredibly invasive being induced with my son was (four days of trying various things, because I was having kidney failure & needed to give birth) I didn't want anyone medical touching me ever again. Nothing inserted for medical abortion.

But even if every abortion routinely included something inserted in your cunt, it is NONE OF THE LEGISLATURE'S BUSINESS. Many of the places that routinely do ultrasound for early-term abortions do it out of fear of being just a few days off in dating, which isn't usually a big deal medically but IS a big deal if a million anti-choicers are examining your practice all the damn time to make sure you don't break any of their stupid restrictive rules (hello, Kansas floor plan requirements for clinics?)

p.s. remember the "prostate cancer screening for viagra prescription" change that was tried? You know what? Women ALREADY have this kind of rider on birth control - there is no reason to include a pap smear in birth control prescription requirements, it's only there because medical professionals really wanted women to get pap smears & knew lots weren't. Is there ANY male-only ailment that is held hostage to a completely different need that way?

[Cannelle]

Personhood is just stupid. When the little clump of cells can crawl out, get a job and support itself, then it's a F*(&ing person.

AMEN.

[0KidsAndHappy]

One of the people I possibly detest more than Jim Bob is Dana Loesch (if you watch CNN enough, you know who this horrible excuse for a woman is). Her take on this has made me hate her even more than I already did...

She had the gall to say, "Wait a minute, they had no problem having similar to a trans-vaginal procedure when they engaged in the act that resulted in their pregnancy."

Right ... Because women who are raped, possibly the same OWS victims she is now so fervently trying to exploit, got so much enjoyment out of being penetrated that they would just love to go through something like that again?

I just can't with these people anymore.

[Caramel]

Tools have to be inserted into the vagina for the abortion.

No, they don't. The majority of early term abortions are now "medical" (i.e., accomplished with medication) instead of "surgical" (i.e., accomplished by direct, intrusive manipulation).

[Katiebug]

Have these lawmakers ever SEEN an early ultrasound image? I had a dating ultrasound done around 12 weeks for this baby my husband and I purposely conceived, and when the image came on the screen I said, "It looks like a space alien!" It does not look like a baby yet that early on.

So true. We had our dating ultrasound at 8 weeks with our purposely-conceived toddler and it looked like a gummy bear with a heartbeat - no joke. At the 12 week nuchal translucency scan the tech got a picture face-on and the baby looked so much like an alien in it that I thought I had ET in there! The only non-scary alien I could think of was Marvin the Martian, and since we weren't finding out the sex until delivery we called our baby Marvin for the duration. :lol: (We had a girl.)

I didn't think that the baby really looked human on ultrasound until 16 weeks. I had my amnio at 16 weeks, my level 2/anatomy scan at 20, and then my next ultrasound wasn't until 34 weeks when my doctor did a quick scan to confirm that the baby wasn't breech. It was a little weird for me to have had ultrasounds every 4 weeks for the first half of my pregnancy and then only 2 or 3 quick ones for the remainder.

[AudreyE]

I just keep hearing people say that this u/s is needed, because an abortion can't be performed without it. I'm not expert, but why would they need a law, if that's true? Wouldn't the doctors have been ordering this already?

But what do doctors have to do with abortion? (unless you're shooting them, of course)

[Deleted03]

One of the people I possibly detest more than Jim Bob is Dana Loesch (if you watch CNN enough, you know who this horrible excuse for a woman is). Her take on this has made me hate her even more than I already did...

She had the gall to say, "Wait a minute, they had no problem having similar to a trans-vaginal procedure when they engaged in the act that resulted in their pregnancy."

Right ... Because women who are raped, possibly the same OWS victims she is now so fervently trying to exploit, got so much enjoyment out of being penetrated that they would just love to go through something like that again?

I just can't with these people anymore.

it's not about having consented to sex beforehand, it's about body integrity. It's about trusting that most women may actually know when the embryo was conceived and are not the irresponsible persons those legislators want you to believe they are. it's about accepting in the privacy of a doctor/patient relation to medical procedures.

[azzyschnu]

I think that this bill is ridiculous and I'm opposed to it in every way, shape and form... but I'm wary of pulling out the rape comparison. The way I see it, the problem with comparing it to rape is two-fold: one, it is a medical procedure and the context is different. There are women who are triggered from routine yearly pap smears, too, but that doesn't mean they're forced. I feel that calling it rape in some way diminishes the trauma and violence of actual rape (I imagine some woman who was beaten within an inch of her life and then someone saying, "I feel your pain. I had to get a transvaginal ultrasound.").

So if a woman is unconscious and is sexually penetrated, and when she wakes up she doesn't even know it happened or remember a thing... does calling that rape diminish the trauma and violence experienced by women who had it worse? Where is the line drawn between unwanted sexual penetration bad enough to be called rape and unwanted sexual penetration that is just unpleasant?

It doesn't matter if you kick and scream and stab your attacker, if you're unconscious, if you 'go along with it' to protect yourself from further harm. Penetration against your will is rape.

[PBrooke]

So if a woman is unconscious and is sexually penetrated, and when she wakes up she doesn't even know it happened or remember a thing... does calling that rape diminish the trauma and violence experienced by women who had it worse? Where is the line drawn between unwanted sexual penetration bad enough to be called rape and unwanted sexual penetration that is just unpleasant?

It doesn't matter if you kick and scream and stab your attacker, if you're unconscious, if you 'go along with it' to protect yourself from further harm. Penetration against your will is rape.

Yeah, I'm not sure I have the words to explain what I'm thinking, but I still feel there's a difference in intent. Perhaps you could say the government officials are guilty of rape by proxy, but not the individual doctors. And I'm not saying that a vaginal ultrasound isn't unwanted, uncomfortable, painful, etc. When I was younger I had some major issues with vaginal exams (not just the usual discomfort) but though I was crying with pain, I never ascribed sinister intent to my doctors. Similarly, these doctors, who will be performing the ultrasounds, would probably just as happily not do them.

[DarkAnts]

they only want the vaginal US so that you can get a good look at the embryo right? Vs an abdominal that would just confirm location and roughly size... I thought that's what I understood when the law was introduced...

I think that we need to pass a bill that requires all men holding a political office to have an anal probe done before they are sworn in. The procedure must be repeated every year to insure that they dont have any tumors that cause them to be butt hurt.

[azzyschnu]

Yeah, I'm not sure I have the words to explain what I'm thinking, but I still feel there's a difference in intent. Perhaps you could say the government officials are guilty of rape by proxy, but not the individual doctors. And I'm not saying that a vaginal ultrasound isn't unwanted, uncomfortable, painful, etc. When I was younger I had some major issues with vaginal exams (not just the usual discomfort) but though I was crying with pain, I never ascribed sinister intent to my doctors. Similarly, these doctors, who will be performing the ultrasounds, would probably just as happily not do them.

I agree in that sense. I get very large, very painful ovarian cysts; when younger, I had both digital exams and transvaginal ultrasounds done in the process of diagnosing them. Having fingers and an ultrasound wand poking around at my ovaries was painful, unpleasant, and embarrassing, but likewise I certainly bear the doctor and technician no ill will.

The thing is that while I was lying on that table with my knees in the air and trying to calm my nerves, I was thinking "they're going to find out what's causing this pain and we can do something about it. This is going to help." If you go in for a transvaginal ultrasound because it's mandated by the State, and you're lying on that table, what are you going to tell yourself? "This is unnecessary and I don't want it done and I'm only here so they can try to guilt me into not getting the abortion I've spent long time agonizing over and sobbing about"? It's adding a whole other level to the pain and emotional trauma that having an abortion already creates.

It is different from being forcibly raped by a person whose intent is to cause sexual harm. In this case, it's the state that's violating you and not the person performing the procedure (who may be hating having to perform it too) - but it's still a violation, in the form of being sexually penetrated against your will with no medical reasoning for it.

This article has a medical professional's perspective and some very good points:

http://www.americanindependent.com/2119 ... -standards

"Women who seek abortions know they are pregnant. Women do not choose abortion lightly. It is an emergency medical treatment – they have done everything right and yet have a pregnancy that is going wrong or may endanger her health or because of failed contraception or became pregnant from untoward circumstances. They know if they continue being pregnant the odds are that they will have a baby. Because they know this they are seeking an abortion. Women know the facts; 60% of our patients at FCHC [Falls Church Health Care] are mothers already. They have seen many ultrasounds; they know exactly what a developing embryo or fetus looks like; they know what a baby looks like. And because they know exactly what is involved in caring for a child, they are seeking to terminate their pregnancy.

Women have always had and needed abortions. Restricting access, cutting off insurance coverage, shaming and insulting women, and promulgating targeted regulations against abortion providers – none of it prevents abortion. It just threatens women’s lives and threatens their families. Making women see a sonogram and wait 24 hours (which may in fact be much longer) is not going to change her mind about her abortion. All it can really do is add another obstacle for her to navigate, and in the process, make her feel devalued and disrespected."

[bananacat]

Tools have to be inserted into the vagina for the abortion. Also, a pelvic exam is usually done unless the new u/s requirement would take the place of that.

I just read the website of our local abortion clinic and they do a pelvic exam and an ultrasound to accurately date the pregnancy. I do not live in VA btw.

I'm not defending this bill, but it really seems kind of silly to me to make a huge deal out of the vaginal transducer when you're at a clinic and most definitely going to be "penetrated" with other things.

Consent to one procedure does not imply consent to another. You're one of those who thinks sluts can't be raped, aren't you?

[Rosa]

The way I see it, the problem with comparing it to rape is two-fold: one, it is a medical procedure and the context is different.

I know lots of women who don't get pap smears because it freaks them out too bad. One went so far as to get tested for every form of HPV she could get tested for, so she knew accurately what her own person risk of getting cervical cancer is if she doesn't get screened.

But: medical procedures done for nonmedical reasons can totally be rape. Just because I choose to let my gynecologist put her fingers inside me for an exam one year doesn't mean she can do that any time I go see her without asking next time. EVERY SINGLE TIME she has to tell me why and get my consent. And if I go to a different doctor because I have a cold, he DEFINITELY doesn't get to put his fingers in any of my orifices just because it's a medical occasion.

[No Fun My Babe]

It's government mandated rape. It's one more unnecessary procedure that tells women they can't make decisions regarding their own bodies. This is just another way for the government to fuck women. Literally.

And that cell clump does look like a fucking alien. What is that supposed to change? "Ohhhhh look my little cell cluster! I know I can't support it/it isn't the right time/I don't want to carry a rape fetus/or I just don't freaking want kids period/ but my eyes have been opened because IT'S LIFE!!!!!1 Christ.

As if I wasn't already disgusted to be a Virginian. And an American.

[chiccy]

I agree with the poster who said that Pap smears should not be required to get a Pill prescription. In fact, it makes me irate that some states do this. (Obviously it is not as bad as the ultrasound thing, but to me it's still bad.) It might be "for our own good" but it's still unconstitutional and, frankly, patronizing. Women should be able to make their OWN health decisions, whether the women in question are as stupid as our fundies or smarter than the lawmakers--and there are plenty of both kinds. Not to mention that it is NOT a good idea to create obstacles against getting the Pill, which does a *ton* of net good for women and society, including vastly reducing the number of abortions.

This is going to be a little paranoid-fundy-esque, perhaps, but I'll say it anyway: isn't there some radiation involved in getting an ultrasound? Couldn't this be of potential *slight* harm to the woman? I have heard that getting ultrasounds increases the risk of miscarriage. And some people are discouraging frequent mammograms these days because of the radiation aspect. I'm sure it's a different type of radiation than ultrasounds use but same idea. I'm personally not too worried about this dimension, but if it's true, it just makes the new law all the more wrong.

In response to some of the posters on page 1, I very much doubt the new law includes a clause that the woman "has to look" at the ultrasound. That would be pretty obviously unconstitutional and, IMO, would actually start approaching the realm of torture. I'm sure woman can choose not to look, and most women will choose exactly that. Thus making the procedure, at the very least, a huge waste of money, either for taxpayers or for the women involved.

I hope it's the taxpayers who will be paying for these ultrasounds--and what a waste of tax dollars!--but does anyone know for sure?

[TinyDancer87]

Merging two topics:

If Santorum wanted to stop healthcare from paying for birth control pills "TO SAVE MONEY", then why would Republicans support a more expensive medical act, by requiring a non-medical procedure? Even more, hypothetically in the future, this could really blow up in their face: If a woman cannot afford birthcontrol pills, gets pregnant, tries to get an abortion, and have a required ultrasound... things could get REALLY expensive. IDK, it seems like such a preventable situation, but instead innocent women will be denied rights and healthcare, and will be forced to do medical procedures that they may not want. Seems like we as a country are taking a million steps back in the wrong direction. :cry:

[Guest Anonymous]

Geniebelle, if a woman wants a vaginal ultrasound, she can get one. What does that have to do with her abortion?

Ummm...perhaps no insurance (or if she has insurance she may not be able to afford the copay/deductible and may not qualify for medicaid and maybe to rule out any reason why she may not be able to have children in the future.

[emmiedahl]

Ultrasounds do not use radiation. Nonetheless, as with all medical technology, they are used only when needed. I am not an expert on this topic by any means; my impression is that the chances of ill effects are low but unknown.

Looking at the ultrasound will make no difference in the early months of pregnancy. You see a blob with a heartbeat inside a sac. This is exactly what most women expect to see.

A transvaginal ultrasound can be an excellent way of determining the gestational age of the pregnancy. I suspect that many doctors who perform abortion use them so they know what type of abortion is necessary and in some areas, whether the abortion is legal. The argument here imo is not whether a transvaginal u/s should be performed, but who should be deciding when it is necessary. I personally think that the doctor should be the one who determines its necessity, not some legislator who has never met the patient and barely passed freshman biology.

Because federal funds cannot be used for abortion and a minority of states cover it with their own funds, the woman seeking the abortion and/or her insurance would be the ones paying in most cases.

Ummm...perhaps no insurance (or if she has insurance she may not be able to afford the copay/deductible and may not qualify for medicaid and maybe to rule out any reason why she may not be able to have children in the future.

See above. In most cases, the woman will have to pay for it anyway. So if she does not have the funds to pay for the ultrasound, she will not be able to get the abortion.

[No Fun My Babe]

In response to some of the posters on page 1, I very much doubt the new law includes a clause that the woman "has to look" at the ultrasound. That would be pretty obviously unconstitutional and, IMO, would actually start approaching the realm of torture.

What's to stop them? None of this is exactly constitutional. I don't know, maybe I'm starting to sound paranoid, but with all of the stuff that's been going on lately, it's hard not to be. :(

[Guest Anonymous]

Ultrasound is not a toy and it is not a political tool. It is a medical procedure only. I can not stress this enough.

I do endovaginal ultrasound routinely on early pregnancy - it really is the most accurate imaging way to date a pregnancy. Accurate dates are very important in all cases of pregnancy and particularly in the case of abortion - as the method of abortion can vary depending on the gestational stage. It is also very useful to ensure the pregnancy is intrauterine. \

I totally agree with this statement. I also think we're all so caught up in the "my body my choice" argument that we fail to realize that certain medical procedures/screenings before an abortion or prescribing birth control could potentially save a woman's life. And from what I'm reading here, nobody seems to care about that. Hell...my doctor has to examine me before prescribing medications for other medical conditions. This is no different, and failure to carry out such procedures/screenings shows a lack of concern for women's health.