Again, the GOP is more interested in punishing women than giving them affordable health care

When Michigan’s Republican Party isn’t busy cutting education, driving down workers’ wages or stealing presidential elections, they always have time to wage a little war on women.

Because it calls for the use of “most technologically advanced ultrasound equipment available at that location”, HB 4187 of 2013 would “effectively require a transvaginal probe” for any woman who wants to end a pregnancy, according to OBGYN Dr. Charlene Abernethy.

Why would a woman be forced to have her body penetrated against her will?

To “protect” her, of course.

From the bill:

THE PERFORMANCE OF A DIAGNOSTIC ULTRASOUND EXAMINATION OF THE FETUS FURTHER PROTECTS THE INTERESTS OF THE WOMAN SEEKING AN ABORTION BY ASSESSING THE VIABILITY OF THE FETUS AND CONFIRMING THE APPROXIMATE GESTATIONAL AGE OF THE FETUS, AS THIS INFORMATION IS NECESSARY IN ORDER TO DETERMINE APPROPRIATE.

Of course, this is a smokescreen made up of stuff bulls have to evacuate.

“These bills are forcing doctors to do medically unnecessary procedures, and are totally politically motivated,” according to Vicki Saporta, President and CEO of the National Abortion Federation, the professional organization of abortion practitioners.

Amy Kerr Hardin at Democracy Tree calls this, “state-sanctioned rape. By law and by definition.”

Behind this violation is the idea that women are so callous that they do not understand what’s going on in their own body.

Republicans love to point out that trust in government is at a historic low.

They think this suggests that people want less spending and a weaker safety net when the opposite is true. What’s more likely is that Americans are sensing that in ways never publicly stated before that Republicans believe wombs are government property and thus the state is free to impose its will on the women that happen to be carrying those wombs.

Meanwhile Republicans are fighting the practical, most effective steps we can take to actually prevent abortions.

The cliche is that Republicans want a government that’s just big enough to fit in your uterus. The truth is they want a government that’s big enough to make sure women only use their bodies to procreate.

UPDATE: This isn’t the only battle Michigan Republicans have started this week in their War on Women. More on this one and yet another HERE.

[Photo by Anne C. Savage]