17 Mar 2012 10:21 am
For those who doubt that there is a Republican war on women, Rachael Maddow lays out the myriad of Republican laws being enacted in state legislatures that include things like mandatory ultrasounds/vaginal probes, which BTW women will also be forced to pay for themselves, scripts written by legislators that doctors will be forced to read to their female patients, allowing or in some cases forcing doctors to lie to their female patients, and in Arizona a bill is working it's way through the state legislature that says that a woman will be required to prove to her employer that she is taking oral contraceptives for a medical condition, and not for contraceptive purposes.Lady Part Legislation Disseminates Through GOP State Legislatures-VIDEOIn my own state of Pennsylvania a bill is working it's way through the legislature which would require doctors to perform an ultrasound on a patient, offer her two personalized copies of the image and play and describe the fetal heartbeat in detail before she can have an abortion. It also requires that the ultrasound image be pointed toward her face.The bill would require doctors to perform a transvaginal ultrasound on a woman whose fetus is not developed enough to be visible by a regular, "jelly-on-the-belly" ultrasound, which of course would be most women seeking an abortion in the first trimester.When asked if this bill was too obtrusive, Governor Tom Corbett [R-PA] said that if you don't want to view the ultrasound image, "You just have to close your eyes."Ironically the bill is called the 'Women's Right to Know Act'.As a woman, there aren't words to describe my outrage over how we are being treated like imbeciles who can't make medical decisions for ourselves without forced government intervention, and how under the guise of providing women with more information, laws are being passed to shame women who are requesting a LEGAL medical procedure.Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett [R-PA] said at a press conference that a bill that would force women seeking an abortion to undergo fetal ultrasounds was not obtrusive because women could simply close their eyes during the procedure. Said Corbett: Im not making anybody watch, OK. Because you just have to close your eyes. As long as its on the exterior and not the interior. (Misty: Which of course is a lie.)