Transvaginal Ultrasounds and Making it Personal--Probably coming to Your State, Soon

Well, the transvaginal ultrasound craze has hit my state, Pennsylvania, with a truly disgusting "thwack" of "Take that, you whorish baby-killer!"

In addition to mandating the much-maligned transvaginal ultrasound requirements since rejected by the state of Virginia, Pennsylvania legislators proposed strongly encouraging women to view and listen to the ultrasounds, forcing technicians to give the women personalized copies of the results and mandating how long before any abortion the ultrasound much be preformed — and that’s just for starters. That last requirement has already been passed and struck down in Louisiana, partially over concerns of patients’ privacy and potential risks for women in abusive relationships, Nash said

That's just for starters. Then:

Additionally, Nash points out that the length of the legislation hides bizarre and unprecedented requirements, such as asking women who gets an ultrasound more than 14 days before her abortion to view a state-approved video on fetal gestation.

One supposes that what she will learn during the video is how much fetal development occurs within 14 days and what a difference they make. At what point are they no longer informing a pregnant woman of the very thing she already knows (that she's pregnant, duh) and are rubbing her nose in it? Is it necessary to show her an ultrasound of her own fetus, when ultrasound pictures of other fetuses at comparable age are available (the picture I'm showing is of a fetus at 10 weeks, via Baby2See. Such pictures are easily available via an Internet search. I'm pretty sure a clinic can get their hands on some very explicit instructional materials without vaginally invading their patients, just as I'm sure that it actually isn't necessary to remind women just what they are pregnant with. It's also dubious whether viewing an ultrasound actually acts as a deterrent to abortion. These laws are designed solely to humiliate and distress the pregnant person who seeks reproductive health services. They aren't necessary.

I think I understand what the authors of such legislation want pregnant women to see--but I hate to break this to them: The "baby" or "child" that they want to protect is usually about the size of a cocktail shrimp and lacks all the warm and fuzzy personality they want to attribute to it at the stage when women generally determine they want to terminate their pregnancies (over 80% in the first trimester). I "get" that in some respect, in the minds of many anti-abortion folks, the "baby" conceived poofs onto a cloud in heaven at the moment sperm meets egg, resembling something like a one-year-old with a halo and a full grasp of English--but that fantasy kid isn't what a women looks at when she views an ultrasound of her first-trimester pregnancy. It's not going to wave to her during the ultrasound or sign "Please carry me to term." It's a ghostly "Could Have Been"--but how different is that to any thinking person than what their own imagination would have given them?

I resent the mandate that puts an onus on both doctor to provide an unnecessary service, and on the pregnant women to be essentially insulted and humiliated for her exercise of a reasoned choice. I think the nature of the legislation shows how very much this transvaginal ultrasound business really has to do with "sending a message" rather than providing education to the patient. It's demeaning. And in all honesty, it's not necessarily going to even reduce abortions, so much as potentially send women to acquire them in a less-safe fashion--but where they face less judgment. That would be the real tragedy.