Prof. Michele Goodwin. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr)

(CNSNews.com) -- A law professor from University of California Irvine said on Friday that the requirement by some states that women have a transvaginal ultrasound before getting an abortion can be compared to “state-sanctioned rape.”

“The broad scope of the kinds of efforts that have been taken to undermine woman’s reproductive health are really quite expansive, right? The vaginal ultrasounds that are really like, could be compared to a state-sanctioned rape,” said Prof. Michele Goodwin at a symposium at Georgetown University Law Center, which focused on the pro-abortion movement.

The event, “Dismantling Reproductive Injustices; The Hyde Amendment and Criminalization of Self-Induced Abortion,” featured Goodwin and other pro-abortion advocates who seek abortion-on-demand and taxpayer-funded abortion through federal health programs.

Georgetown, although a Catholic institution, hosted the event through its Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law.

“You can’t imagine that with any other kind of health care service that the state would force you to look on video at something that actually could be very disturbing to you,” said Goodwin, whose bio states that she is “the founder and director of the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy at UC Irvine School of Law and its internationally acclaimed Reproductive Justice Initiative.”

“For example, if you had clotted arteries or a clotted colon,” Goodwin said. “This very idea that the state would make you and say, well, we’re not going to allow you to have this surgery until you take a real deep look into your gut.”

“Now that would seem absolutely absurd,” Goodwin said. “It wouldn’t be something that we would be allowed to happen.”

According to the National Institute of Health’s (NIH) National Library of Medicine, the transvaginal ultrasound is mostly used to detect problems with a woman’s reproductive organs but can also be used during pregnancy. During pregnancy, in the second and third trimester, an ultrasound can be conducted by using the technology outside of the vagina.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion research organization, 25 states “regulate the provision of ultrasound by abortion providers.”

Guttmacher data show:

· 3 states mandate that an abortion provider perform an ultrasound on each woman seeking an abortion and requires the provider to show and describe the image.

· 10 states mandate that an abortion provider perform an ultrasound on each woman seeking an abortion, and require the provider to offer the woman the opportunity to view the image.

· 9 states require that a woman be provided with the opportunity to view an ultrasound image if her provider performs the procedure as part of the preparation for an abortion.

· 6 states require that a woman be provided with the opportunity to view an ultrasound image.