Comments on: State senator claims ownership of Nebraska uteruses

By: KPH

KPH — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 04:56:57 +0000

I absolutely agree that this in particular is an ugly way to try to make a woman feel shameful for getting an abortion. However, I am fully in support of psychiatrists and such being on hand in abortion clinics for women who are raped, are dealing with a bad breakup and the mental disturbances of carrying the child of a man that she is now disgusted by, for the rare situation where some women do become addicted to having abortions, etc. I am also supportive of having social workers on hand in abortion clinics for women who are dealing with men who think they have rights to the embryo (hello, you want to control your reproductive system fine, but once you shoot out your sperm it is now her property and belongs to her body, you can’t force her into anything) or for those that need financial aid to support a child that they otherwise want, etc.
Although a woman reserves the right to not answer any questions regarding these services, I think that the employees at abortion clinics should be mandated to ask questions before going through with any procedure. When some egotistical and misogynist polition thinks he has the right to guilt a woman into not having an abortion, it is certainly a serious problem, but I also feel it is the duty of the state to pry for information about someone’s personal life when it is appropriate and neccessary. There are so many women who are not aware of their options, and asking certain questions could raise questions of her own, and could actually help her. But this guilt-trip business is going too far.

By: On Appeasement « The Radical Notion

On Appeasement « The Radical Notion — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 21:02:12 +0000

[...] far as fetal ultrasound mandates go, I think Twisty says it best: Because stupid ignorant women apparently don’t have the slightest idea what pregnancy is; they [...]

By: lauredhel

lauredhel — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 05:55:55 +0000

They’re not magic; they just can add to the information available, when performed properly. They’re very heavily operator-dependent, and equipment-dependent also. I recently had a new breast lump investigated, and the first thing my surgeon looked at was who had done the scan and interpreted the mammogram, because this informed her management to a rather large extent.

By: Twisty

Twisty — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 00:53:40 +0000

Ultrasounds aren’t some kind of infallible miracle Superman X-Ray Glasses or something. I had a boobal ultrasound that missed a tumor the size of a walnut. No shit.

By: lauredhel

lauredhel — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:31:53 +0000

Amananta, that depends on what you mean by "before" the abortion, where you are, what the clinics are like, etc. I've not heard of a woman here not having a scan at the time of abortion, and I've referred for plenty. It doesn't have to be done at a separate appointment, however, or shown to the woman, or even done while she's awake, or anything like that. US is partly to be sure of gestational age (for medical safety reasons, not legal ones - whether medical abortion is appropriate, what size vacuum cannula to use (keeping to the minimum require size means less cervical dilatation is needed), whether there needs to be prep time with laminaria insertion before a later abortion). But also to reduce the likelihood of sending a woman blithely home with an untreated ectopic pregnancy, to rule out hydatidiform mole, to (as mentioned above) delineate any major uterine anomalies before the surgeon perforates the uterus, and so on. Ultrasound is also used during the procedure to confirm that the products of conception have been evacuated. This is all part of the procedure, and designed to make it even safer, not to put women off. As you can see from this page, ultrasound at the abortion appointment is routine at Marie Stopes Autralia (and it has been for quite some time). Here's another example. It's part of the procedure, and is not billed separately. I wouldn't be surprised, however, if some clinics in the USA are not adhering to the gold standard of care in this regard. My understanding is that some aspects of choice-related medicine have been years behind Australia for quite some time. I gather that some women aren't even offered anaesthetic for abortion. I also understand there are still prenatal units in the States umming and aahing about whether women should be offered the fetal screening (first trimester screening) that has been the standard of care elsewhere for years, preferring instead to offer much later and less accurate screening which can lead to it being too late to choose abortion even if the mother wishes it after the results are finally in.

By: Amananta

Amananta — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:56:57 +0000

Sorry to double post but – no it is NOT standard procedure to ultrasound before an abortion. I have never even heard of a woman having one before an abortion without some other medical issue going on (like I had). As to fetal age, a manual exam by the doctor is generally sufficient to determine a rough age of gestation.
If some doctors are performing ultrasounds regularly to protect themselves from prosecution by rabid anti-choicers waiting for them to slip to the wrong side of the line on age, those are performed for political, not medical reasons.

By: Amananta

Amananta — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:45:29 +0000

I had an ultrasound before my one abortion because of some unusual pain I was having and they feared an ectopic pregnancy. I stared at the screen. There was a little whitish blob surrounded by some darkish greyish stuff. One of the technicians said, “Look, there’s one of it’s flippers!” I was unimpressed.

By: speedbudget

speedbudget — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:55:49 +0000

Do you really have to look? Or not and say you did? What if they hand you the fuzzy picture and you shut your eyes? What if you look at it and go, “Meh”? How do they police whether or not a woman actually looked? Or do they hold you down and pry your eyelids open?

By: jael

jael — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 08:31:17 +0000

professional indemnity liability.

if there were a chance something could go wrong
that someone could suffer permanent injury
and an ultrasound could reduce the chance of it –
that’d be reason enough to say I’m not going to this, i could hurt you badly without it and i’m not going to run that risk.
these stories about women dying as a result of their abortions aren’t just fairy tales to scare wanton women.

and a potential $ exposure for who knows how much money
and if you hadn’t done the scan you weren’t covered
or you’d lose your insurance and could never practice again..
you really think you wouldn’t insist that women have the ultrasound?

the system might be flawed (indeed, the system IS flawed)
BUT…
if you are an actor in the system
you’re restrained by its rules, whatever they are.

By: Spiders

Spiders — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 06:07:05 +0000

I’ve had several abortions and not once did I have an ultrasound, although I did have to have a blood test to confirm that yes I was indeed pregnant and also to determine my blood type (even though I already knew it and had a blood donor card on me stating it).

I did however have transvaginal ultrasounds for both of my ectopic pregnancies and neither of them were helpful in determining the nature of the pregnancy as there was already internal bleeding occuring so the technician couldn’t see a damned thing anyway.

It seems like an unnecessary extension of an often traumatic procedure, and I don’t much buy the arguments about medical safety either, because in my case the doctors needed to go inside to really see what was going on. Maybe if it involved actual surgery, as in cutting you open, I could see the validity of that argument.

This is clearly just a case of the state adopting the manipulative strategies that anti-abortion activists have been using for years.