What does it say about the state of our society when so many state legislators seem to make the passage of laws de-humanizing women their main priority, but newspapers are afraid of running comic strips satirizing these laws? Garry Trudeau, the brilliant political cartoonist, has produced a series on forced trans-vaginal sonogram laws in Texas, but papers in a number of the states with similar laws are not running it.
After weeks of protest in the state of Virginia and nationally, Governor Bob McDonnell signs a bill forcing women to have and pay out of pocket for an expensive and often medically-unnecessary medical procedure before they can terminate a pregnancy, suggesting it is an effort to “empower women.”
![Senator Clay Scofield. [img src]](http://rhrealitycheck.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/../../files/teaser-images/2012-03-07-kopsa-187x125.jpeg)
Unable to say the word “vaginal,” one of the authors of the forced trans-vaginal ultrasound bill in Alabama says he will pull it. But the women of Alabama won’t stand for replacing it with forced abdominal ultrasounds or any other form of coercion.
A senator pushing for mandatory ultrasounds in Alabama claims his company wouldn’t benefit financially. But is he telling the truth?
Pictures worth 10,000 words… Virginia sends in riot police to arrest peaceful protestors supporting women’s rights. Apparently, they can occupy your uterus, but you can’t occupy your state capitol.
![Nicholas Kristof. [img src]](http://rhrealitycheck.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/../../files/teaser-images/2012-03-05-marty2-187x125.jpeg)
The New York Times columnist pens a brutal column on Texas’ mandatory ultrasound bill.
![Senator Rick Ward, III (D-Maringouin). [img src]](http://rhrealitycheck.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/../../files/teaser-images/2012-03-05-marty1-187x125.jpeg)
Does that make abortions performed by physicians “legal abortion by dismemberment?”
Early this morning, I learned that Governor McDonnell had ordered a SWAT Team to cover a Candlelight Vigil I attended the night before at the Governor’s Mansion. Riot police were hiding in the bushes, while my two small children and I sang, “This Little Light of Mine.” And that was only the beginning of my lesson.
While there has been much fury recently over Virginia’s recently proposed transvaginal ultrasound bill, other states’ anti-choice lawmakers have chosen the equally unacceptable route of psychological—rather than physical—violation of women.
A lot of the discussion surrounding women’s health and reproductive rights can certainly be boiled down to trust…both the lack of trust and mistrust in women. Hearings like the one last week and bills like the one in Virginia are symptomatic of a larger issue that Congresswoman DeLauro is noticing.
