When Transvaginal Airlines made an unscheduled landing in Virginia a week or so ago, my instincts told me that the North Carolina anti-abortion law passed last year over Gov. Perdue's veto had also inserted a similar probe into women's vaginas in our fair state. And I've been intending to go look at the law. Laura Leslie beat me to it.
Indeed, dear North Carolina women, our state's Republican Party has rammed through an invasion of your most private parts, because -- hey! -- they own your womb.
If you seek a wholly legal abortion in the first 20 weeks of pregnancy, the new abortion law mandates -- demands -- an ultrasound before the procedure. And the woman seeking it must be shown the image of the fetus and have the fetus described to her (should she deliberately or inadvertently close her eyes) and be offered the opportunity to hear the fetal heartbeat (I can hardly believe the legislators made that part optional).
Now then ... as Leslie explains, to get that ultrasound image in the first weeks of pregnancy requires transvaginal probing. So although the NC law does not explicitly say it, nor use the now-famous term, they have nevertheless staked a transvaginal-probing claim to a woman's innards in effect.
A federal judge has temporarily stayed the part of the law that requires a doctor to describe the ultrasound image to the patient, but the rest of the law is in effect.
The fact that North Carolina women, and particularly Planned Parenthood, allowed this to happen without storming the friggin' castle a little more concertedly, suggests that the women of Virginia are more organized and tougher. And that I don't believe.
Where are all the anti-big government types hiding on this issue? Is it OK for government to over-ride the doctor patient relationship and mandate intrusive procedures in order to push an ideological agenda?
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