Posted on 02/27/2012 6:02:36 AM PST by SeekAndFind
This is absolutely out of control.
But it was a brilliant strategy that Planned Parenthood and friends used to defeat a bill in Virginia that would have required pre-abortion ultrasounds: Get as many people as possible to repeat the word “transvaginal” in news and commentary, in order to accomplish two things: defeat the legislation at hand and make your opposition look like a freak show.
At one protest against the legislation, “Molly Vick of Richmond said it was her first time to take part in a protest, but the issue was too infuriating and compelling,” the Washington Post reported. Ms. Vick wore a sticker on her shirt that insisted: “Say No to State-Mandated Rape.” Instead of a belt on her jeans, she wore yellow tape that warned: “Private Property: Keep Out.”
Infuriating? What’s infuriating is that we can’t have an honest debate about anything that might happen to involve women, because it might make Planned Parenthood or any of the political or business wings of the abortion industry uncomfortable. This is the new bra-burning America, and it’s just as delusional and duplicitous as the old one. These protesters aren’t anti-establishment; they are the establishment. Don’t let the gal with the yellow tape fool you.
In recent days (weeks and years, too), media coverage of just about all things regarding women have taken on new frenzied proportions. George Orwell would be impressed — even Saturday Night Live got into the messaging.
Go ahead and read the bill that caused the “rape” cries. The word “transvaginal” never appears in it.
The bill was an update on Virginia’s informed-consent law, and didn’t require a particular kind of ultrasound, but mandated that the “standard medical practice in the community” for an ultrasound be followed. So doctors on site, not the governor or the house of delegates or the legendary exorcist Rick Santorum, would be making the calls about exactly what kind of ultrasound would be best for a particular woman. Planned Parenthood clinics already do ultrasounds (it helps with the pricing of abortions, among other things). The law wasn’t meant to do anything but make sure no women fell through the cracks.
And, frankly, even if the bill did mandate an invasive form of ultrasound — sometimes gestational age or other factors will make these the most accurate methods — let’s be honest about it and “women’s health”: It wouldn’t have been state-sponsored rape, as it was being characterized. It’s standard medical care. All things in the OB-GYN world tend to be invasive. Are routine exams rape, too? Can we just drop the nonsense already?
Apparently not. Not when those who resort to the most shameless rhetoric tend to win. The chattering class is fully engaged in a self-righteous spin cycle about those right-wing hypocrites who claim to be about small government and freedom but who instead are “literally trying to insert themselves into women’s bodies,” as one talking head explained.
It’s hard to make sense of the whole ugly Virginia “transvaginal” incident other than to note that critics of the bill simply, as a matter of principle, don’t want anyone to be reminded what exactly is done in an abortion clinic. No one went into a demonizing overdrive because of ultrasound per se; they’re already routinely done. The real kick was that women would be offered the chance to look at the ultrasound. If they did, they would see the beating of a tiny human heart. And that’s a threat to the abortion industry. A glimpse of this fight shows that, while these critics of the bill talk about women’s health, they don’t really have the interests of either patient in mind.
This issue is so much broader, but the debate has created a dark and pernicious fog. One that keeps us from facing the truth about what we’re debating at a given time, and what’s best for our own lives and those who we most naturally love.
Just rewind a few weeks to what happened when the Susan G. Komen Foundation dared to make a management decision and cut off grants to Planned Parenthood, not only because the relationship increasingly distracted from Komen’s primary mission, ending breast cancer, but also because more efficient grant-making opportunities were possible. According to former Komen vice president Karen Handel, Komen’s sensible plan was betrayed by Planned Parenthood’s leadership, who leaked the defunding story to the press and launched their “well-orchestrated, vicious campaign.” And the “sisterhood” is not done yet, as Komen knows, and we can see, even on Saturday-night television.
The late John Paul II, calling on all men and women of mercy to build a culture of life, described the struggle in which we are engaged as a “war of the powerful against the weak.” We are seeing this culture of death strengthen its foundations when we let bullies have their way with public policy and nonprofits and their corporate sponsors, and when the federal government tells religious Americans they must comply with a radical ideology or be fined — and mercilessly ridiculed, dismissed, or discredited, whatever the facts.
However well-intentioned some members of this “pro-women” movement may be, instead of contributing to the discussion, the movement has become a manipulative crusade. Don’t buy the spin. Humanity is a lot more complicated, sensitive, and discerning than those insulting them with one brand of invective or another appreciate.
The SNL skit lampooning the Virginia ultrasound bill ended by proclaiming, “Don’t tell me what to do.” My sentiments exactly. Or how to think, or talk. In pursuit of faux freedom, don’t resort to the kind of dishonest rhetoric that tramples on the very reason for our Founding.
— Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor-at-large of National Review Online.
“Don’t tell me what to do, just pay the bill already”.
I don’t know how much “brilliance” I’d subscribe to their strategy, we’re talking a majority of Americans who voted for Hussein. And women are the worst “oohhh but he looks so nice”.
Television has been a curse to this nation.
Before I had open heart surgery, the doctors did a cardiac catheterization, and showed me where they needed to operate. When I had knee surgery, before they did the arthroscopic surgery, the doctors showed me the X-rays showing what needed to be done. When I had a basal cell carcinoma, the doctors explained the procedures needed to determine the size of the tumor and how they planned to excise it. Why should abortion be any different?
A gal who is most often going to have little rods stuck into her cervix one by one in order to stretch it open and extract a child after that child is hacked into pieces with a knife.... is being raped if she first has to have a probe inserted to take a picture of the child so she can know exactly what she is doing before she agrees to it?
I understand that the whole “transvaginal” thing is made up, but even if transvaginal ultrasounds were necessary, the whole premise is absurd. Any woman who would submit to that invasion of her space in order to “get the job done” would be submitting to nothing more invasive if one of the necessary rods just happened to be an ultrasound probe.
At the same time, I wonder how many of these women would protest the government coercing medical nuns to perform abortions which they believe is murder. Forced government abortions is a heckuva lot closer to rape than anything these women are wailing about, since the women who seek abortions are consenting to the invasive process.
Some women are so-o-o-o-o stupid.
Say, Molly, I hate to fry the wires in your brain, but have you ever thought about the path abortionists take to get to the victim of their trade?
That brings up another valid point too: ultrasounds ARE medically necessary for early abortions, because if the pregnancy is in the fallopian tube rather than in the uterus, a conventional abortion could result in the death of the woman.
Requiring an ultrasound could save the lives of women with ectopic pregnancies.
Not to go all Rick Santorum on you but that is exactly Satan's favorite tactic. In fact, it is his ONLY tactic. Create doubt and confusion.
And stupid people like Molly Vick are nothing but empty-headed Wormwoods to his Screwtapes.
Another medical reason for ultrasound, especially for early abortions, is that pregnancy tests can be in error and a significant amount of pregnancies result in miscarriage - both of which are cases where an ultrasound could show that an abortion was unnecessary.
If a transvaginal ultrasound is considered “rape”, an abortion should be considered rape as well (resulting in murder). Why isn’t anyone asking the question “if the untrasound is invasive isn’t the abortion invasive as well?”
I have a note of praise to share.
A girl at our church shared that an acquaintance approached her last week and wanted some help and advice about her unplanned pregnancy.
The girl went into a clinic and was all prepped for the abortion and walked out after seeing the ultrasound.
Praise God for a saved innocent life, and for saving the MOTHER! a lifetime of remorse and guilt.
And if she keeps that “private property” belt on until she’s married, she won’t have to worry about an abortion anyway.
}:-)4
The abortionist answer: "It isn't rape if she asks for it."
BTTT
The Left is morally and intellectually dead.
Just present a bill denying Obamacare $ coverage of ultrasounds, because after all - it is rape - and watch the exact same leftist heads switch position 180 degrees.
The problem here is - they face no penalty. The cretins who support them - never ask. They don’t care. Credibility is meaningless to them.
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