Watered-Down Mandatory Rape Bill Still Monster Victory for Repug Freakazoids

Because the debate now is not how to make abortions easy, frequent and free;

not about how to keep decisions about abortion between a woman and her doctor;

not about how to promote contraception to prevent abortion;

not about how to minimize the ridiculous and unnecessary obstacles to abortion;

not about preventing freakazoids from murdering doctors

not about saving the last handful of abortion clinics in the country;

not about how much to shame and humiliate women seeking an abortion;

not even about whether to force doctors to rape their own patients who seek an abortion.

Today, because of Democratic acquiescence to repug framing, the only abortion question is in what manner must doctors rape their patients.

Digby:

So, it looks as if Virginia's Governor has decided that he didn't want to sign a state rape bill after all. In his statement he cited the argument that no person should have their bodies invaded against their will:

Mandating an invasive procedure in order to give informed consent is not a proper role for the state. No person should be directed to undergo an invasive procedure by the state, without their consent, as a precondition to another medical procedure.

Huzzah. No mandatory probe. But he's still spouting nonsense on the subject. He also said:

It is clear that in the majority of cases, a routine external, transabdominal ultrasound is sufficient to meet the bills stated purpose, that is, to determine gestational age. I have come to understand that the medical practice and standard of care currently guide physicians to use other procedures to find the gestational age of the child, when abdominal ultrasounds cannot do so. Determining gestational age is essential for legal reasons, to know the trimester of the pregnancy in order to comply with the law, and for medical reasons as well.

Doing ultrasounds to determine the gestational age for medical reasons is none of the state's business and the state has no business compelling them for legal reasons. Moreover, doing them in the first trimester in most cases would not necessarily be helpful in that endeavor --- in fact, that was the excuse these forced childbirth zealots gave for requiring the transvaginal ultrasounds in the first place: they couldn't properly reveal the fetus.

There is only one right way to do this. Leave it up to the doctor and the patient to decide what tests are medically necessary before having an abortion, period.

Read the whole thing.

See also KeninNY at Down with Tyranny.