There’s A Name For Forced Penetration Of A Women Without Her Consent

The Republican war on women – and it is a war – has moved on to the next, but certainly not last, step in Virginia.

The Virginia legislature has passed a bill that will force women seeking an abortion to undergo a medically unnecessary transvaginal ultrasound. The mandated procedure requires that a woman’s vagina be distended with a speculum and that a probe be inserted into the vagina and manipulated around so as to produce a high-resolution picture of the uterus and surrounding organs — once again, for no medically sound reason. Governor Bob McDonnell has said that he will sign the bill. As part of the same package, the legislature also enacted a “personhood” law that would define life to begin at the stage of a fertilized egg, even before implantation, and hence would outlaw many forms of contraception and all abortions.

Forced penetration of a woman without her consent is the definition of rape.  It’s simply outrageous.  Virginia has all but declared women as property of the state.  What’s next?  Mandatory monthly pregnancy tests?

And let’s face it, it takes a sick mind to think vaginally probing a women is just fine – good, in fact.  Can you imagine any such law applying to men?  Of course not.  Why, it would be unthinkable.

But when it comes to women’s bodies, well that’s a different story to Republicans.  The GOP has declared women as property, potential baby-makers, who are unable to think for themselves and have no right to autonomy.  In Republican land we are merely incubators-in-waiting – a vessel to be probed.  And if the GOP gets their way on contraception there will be a lot of state sanctioned probing going on.

And it is noted that all the calls for “less government” from the right are complete lies.  They love government control of women – simply adore it, and can’t get enough of it.

There’s simply so much morally wrong with this law I’m not sure where to end this post.  Do I ask who pays for this unnecessary medical procedure?  If insurance companies refuse, then what?  Do I point out that after the transvaginal ultrasound a woman must wait 10 day to think about it?  Because, you know, abortions are an impulse buy, and women need to be told to think.  I could probably write 100 posts and still not cover everything.  So I’ll leave you with a point by Charles Pierce:

Where in the hell are the doctors? Where in hell is the AMA?

Women are being required to undergo a medically unnecessary, personally violative procedure without their consent. (An amendment to require consent unsurprisingly failed in the legislature.) Doctors simply should refuse to conduct this procedure as a violation of their duties as physicians. The AMA should back them legally all the way up to the five wise souls in the big marble building. It should also sue the Commonwealth of Virginia, and McDonnell, until their eyeballs bleed. Doctors should speak out boldly, and without fear, about being used as middlemen in the relentless war on women being waged on several fronts by the anti-choice communities. It’s time for being a physician to mean more than the fact that you get a new Lexus every year. Any doctors in the peanut gallery who think I’m wrong about this should chime in down in the comments.

Hey, I have a notion. Demand a “conscience exemption” from the requirements of this act of medical barbarism. Those seem to be all the rage these days.

Indeed.