Perhaps you’ve heard of South Carolina’s latest attempt to embarass itself? It’s called HR 3355, a bill which would add the following to South Carolina law.
Any woman who wants to have an abortion, for whatever reason would be forced to have and view an ultrasound of the fetus:
The obstetric ultrasound must be performed by the physician who is to perform the abortion or a certified technician working in conjunction with the physician.
The images viewed by the physician or certified technician to verify the gestational age must be reproduced and reviewed with the mother by the physician or allied health professional working in conjunction with the physician prior to the woman giving informed consent to having an abortion procedure performed.
[…]
The woman must certify in writing, before the abortion, that the information and obstetric ultrasound images […] have been provided to and reviewed with her
I discussed this bill with my wife the other day. She thinks it’s a boneheaded bill, and I agree. Why do we think this bill is bad?
- Our courts have already decided that a woman has a right to control her reproduction. This is just an attempt to add more onerous restrictions on that right.
- It’s a cheap scare tactic. Show a woman a picture of something that vaguely resembles a human with the intent of guilt-tripping her into not doing something that she has already made a decision to do.
- The state is forcing an unnecessary medical procedure on a woman, who will not benefit in any way from the procedure.
- To add injury to insult, the state will apparently force the woman to pay for the procedure. Unless I missed it, there is no mention of funding being provided for these mandatory ultrasounds.
- South Carolina already has a relatively low abortion rate. What problem are legislators trying to solve here – aside from the omni-present need to pander to a certain set of religious conservatives?
- Presumably, the intent of this bill is for women to give birth to more unwanted children. Given the fact that South Carolina does such a poor job with the children we do want, how can this possibly be a good thing? (South Carolina’s infant mortality rate is one of the highest in the nation.)
We here at Shrimp and Grits are not pleased that our legislators are wasting time with such foolishness.