Ensuring women have all the necessary information before having abortions is a perfectly logical requirement.  The pro-choice movement goes into hysterics over things like this, of course, just like they oppose common sense rules like parental notification (your child can’t take an Advil at school without your permission and a multi-step process, but the school can take them to have your child undergo a risky medical procedure that kills your grandchild?!).

Why don’t pro-choicers trust women to make good decisions with the information available?  Do they think they are too fragile to know the truth?  The real reason for their opposition is that they know that when women see ultrasounds they are much less likely to have abortions.

Also note that this is a case where a politician accomplishes something for the pro-life movement.  I know some politicians of both parties use issues like this in a cynical way just to raise funds.  They prefer that it not be fully settled.  But legislation like this will save lives.

Some critics have said the bill isn’t an emergency, but I say that if lives are at stake then it is an emergency.

Others say it may traumatize the woman.  But the pro-aborts typically insist that abortion is never traumatizing.  These women may see ultrasounds of other babies in the future.  Couldn’t that traumatize them as well?  And if it is just a “blob of tissue” being removed, how would that be traumatic?

UPDATE: I wanted to add these important thoughts from commenter Roxanne.  They further highlight the benefits of this law.  If people really care about “safe” abortions then they would require ultrasounds.

As Abby Johnson mentioned in a side note in “Unplanned’, ultrasounds are the safer way to do abortions – but clinics don’t like the extra cost and time (which cuts down on the number of abortions that can be done in a given day).

If a baby really were like a tumour, you would demand an ultrasound, right?  You would want to know exactly what it is that’s in there and the risks of taking it out.  If women really were capable of making their own decisions, you wouldn’t use this foolish version of “informed consent,” in which the onus is on the patient to find out everything that she needs to know, while the doctor gives her tests and information only  under legal duress; you would make the information available to her, trusting her to understand it and use it.

 

P.S. If nothing else, go to the link to see the latest caption in the Wintery Knight’s “Unborn baby scheming about ______” series.  I always laugh at whatever he comes up with for the Mr. Burns look-alike unborn human being.

Via Republican Governor Rick Perry demands sonograms before abortions « Wintery Knight.

Texas governor Rick Perry is throwing his weight behind legislation to require doctors to show women a sonogram of their unborn child before having an abortion, declaring the issue a legislative “emergency.”

As an emergency item on the legislative agenda, the state congress will have the option of voting on the measure within the first 30 days of the current legislative session.

In addition to the sonogram, the bill would also require doctors to give mothers a detailed description of their child and his state of development, including the presence of limbs and internal organs. Mothers will also listen to their children’s heartbeat, and must be given information about abortion alternatives no less than 24 hours before the abortion occurs.

Perry’s decision to fast track the legislation was announced at a speech before the Texas Rally for Life, held on Saturday in Austin, the state capital.

“Nearly 40 years have passed since the tragedy of Roe vs. Wade was decided by the United States Supreme Court, and since then, fifty million, fifty million children have lost their chances,” Perry told the crowd.

“That is a catastrophic number.  That’s twice the population of this entire state. It’s pretty hard to imagine people of good conscience sitting idly by through this, and in Texas we haven’t. We have actively worked against that Roe vs. Wade decision.  We have taken great strides in protecting the unborn.”