With all the talk lately of Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s signing a pre-abortion forced ultrasound bill into law–thus reportedly damaging his chances at being picked as the GOP running mate–what has been largely forgotten is that Rick Perry did the same thing last year, only worse.
Virginia’s first attempt to pass their bill mandated that the ultrasound be transvaginal rather than transabdominal, but that was watered down somewhat and now medically unnecessary transabdominal ultrasounds are what the government of Virginia requires prior to an abortion.
By contrast, legalized rape has been a fact in Texas since Rick Perry signed his state’s forced ultrasound bill, whose enforcement commenced in February. The government requires a woman seeking an abortion to undergo medically unnecessary forced ultrasound, the vast majority of which will be by vaginal probe in the first trimester. (The law requires that the sonogram seek the fetal heartbeat, though the woman are allowed apparently to “choose not to hear” it. But fetal heartbeats can’t easily be detected early in pregnancy with an abdominal probe–it’s the vaginal probe that is typically used to examine fetuses at that stage. Hence the rape.) Why legalized, government-mandated rape in Texas has not lit people up with outrage, amid Perry’s recent prominence and all the outrage around McDonnell, is a complete mystery to me.
Thankfully, Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau has finally called attention to the wretched Texas law in a series of comic strips (look for them at the hyperlink starting March 12) that have already been banished by some newspapers. And thankfully, Rachel Maddow defended the strip on her March 12 show.
