Perhaps you noticed that Virginia
passed a law recently that says that women seeking abortions (I will remind you again, a completely LEGAL MEDICAL PROCEDURE) first have to be shown an ultrasound of the embryo. You may recall there was some "kerfluffle" regarding the invasive nature of the ultrasound which the governor assured everyone was blown out of proportion and misunderstood and the law is soooo wonderful because it allows for a woman to have "informed consent."
This is insulting on many levels beginning with the assumption that once a woman has made the agonizing decision to end a pregnancy she really doesn't understand what that entails unless she gets forced to endure a completely unnecessary procedure to "see" that two-inch embryonic potential life. The state of Virginia is telling half of its citizens, "We know you
think you know what's best for you, but you don't. We do." (Ironically, Virginia practices capital punishment, so the sanctity of life there really only applies to unborn fetuses.) While this law and others like it aren't specifically attacking a woman's right to choose, they are undermining it. Intentionally, but subtly.
However a
new bill in Arizona has thrown subtlety out the window. This bill will allow (and one would presume, encourage) doctors to
lie to pregnant women about their health and/or the health of their unborn child in an effort to prevent a woman from choosing to terminate a potentially-deadly pregnancy. Or a pregnancy that would result in a child with severe disabilities. The legislators in Arizona feel so strongly that women cannot possibly choose to have an abortion that they are stepping in between a woman and her physician to prevent that choice from ever occurring. The informed consent of Virginia is laughable in Arizona, where information, as far as the state legislators are concerned only leads to uppity women making decisions about their health and lives on their own. I'm assuming the thought process (if there was one) went something like: "we can't outlaw abortion 'cause of that whole Roe v. Wade thing, so let's just have the doctors
lie and tell the little ladies anything they need to to keep them from choosing it." (Again, Arizona, like Virginia, has an active death penalty law.)
This is all part of a larger picture of the OLD WHITE MEN (heretofore known as OWM) trying to tell us that they know what's best for our bodies and our lives. They can dress it up as religious freedom, as conscience, as morality, even as a budgetary issue, but the reality is we are being relegated to second class citizenship because OWM disagree with something COMPLETELY LEGAL we might want to do.
