A new Oklahoma law permits women seeking abortion to avert their eyes while an ultrasound is performed -- but requires them to hear a description of what the ultrasound is displaying.

"Nothing in this section shall be construed to prevent a pregnant

woman from averting her eyes from the ultrasound images required to be

provided to and reviewed with her." This is the "good news" of an

egregious law recently passed in Oklahoma making ultrasounds mandatory

for abortion patients. But though I read the law carefully (available here in its entirety),

I couldn’t find anything allowing women to also cover their ears during

the ultrasound. This is unfortunate, because the law requires that

those performing the ultrasound "provide a simultaneous explanation of

what the ultrasound is depicting," and also "provide a medical

description of the ultrasound images, which shall include the

dimensions of the embryo or fetus, the presence of cardiac activity, if

present and viewable, and the presence of external members and internal

organs, if present and viewable." Even those women who are aborting a

pregnancy caused by rape or incest are compelled to undergo such

mandated ultrasounds.

Ultrasounds have become one of the key weapons of anti-abortion

legislators. A number of states require abortion providers to make

ultrasounds available; a handful of others make viewing mandatory, but

Oklahoma is the first state, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, that requires a woman to hear the description of an ultrasound image.

The Oklahoma law has the added perverse feature of preventing a

woman from suing her doctor if he or she intentionally withholds other

information about the fetus, such as an anomaly. So, women are forced

to hear something they may not choose to hear, but are not entitled to

information that would be presumably of critical importance to them.

Such is the state of public policy when it is in the hands of

anti-abortion fanatics.

The Center has filed a challenge against the law,

on behalf of a clinic in Tulsa, Reproductive Services, arguing that

this law "profoundly intrudes upon a patient’s privacy, endangers her

health, and assaults her dignity."

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This Oklahoma law is particularly interesting to me, because I

am in the midst of writing a book on contemporary abortion provision. I

have been of course documenting the many assaults–-physical, legal, and

cultural-–on abortion providers, but I also have been writing about what

constitutes good abortion care. After interviewing and observing

numerous providers, and participating in their listserv discussions, I

realize that one of the core principles of this field is that all women

can’t be treated alike. One-size-fits-all policies just don’t make

sense, given the different needs and backgrounds of abortion patients.

I have been continually struck by the accounts I have heard of

providers attempting to "meet the woman where she is at," to quote a

phrase frequently used in this field.

For example, the fact that abortion providers are predictably

appalled by the Oklahoma law does not preclude their recognition that

some abortion patients do in fact wish to see their ultrasound. And

these women’s requests are honored. Common sense.

But it is not common sense-–or common decency-–that is driving

the Oklahoma legislators who passed this law. Rather, the intent here,

as with so many of the hundreds of anti-abortion bills that have been

passed, is to harass patients and make operations difficult, if not

impossible, for the provider community. In the case of Reproductive

Services, the clinic challenging the law, the legislators may be

successful. An article in the Tulsa World quotes the administrator of

the clinic saying her facility will probably not be able to survive financially

if this law is upheld, because of the added costs. The clinic,

incidentally, also provides contraceptive services and adoption

counseling and referrals.

As one of the wisest women I know in the abortion providing

community frequently says, when confronted with such blatantly cruel

legislation, "Dude, where’s our country?"