This week, the Virginia House passed a particularly ugly bit of legislation that would require women seeking a first-trimester abortion in the state to undergo a vaginal ultrasound for no medical reason. Many women are upset because by most definitions, forcing a woman to have something put inside her vagina against her will and for no reason is, uh, rape. But Republicans state legislators don't see what the fuss is about. After all, those sluts already consented to be penetrated— when they got pregnant. Are you fucking kidding me?


According to the language of the legislation, the pre-abortion probing is to be performed on women so that they can be forced to look at the captured image of the prebaby before deciding to undergo a legal medical procedure that would end their pregnancy. Virginia's Democratic State Senators attempted to add an amendment to the legislation that would allow a doctor or patient to decline the ultrasound, but it was defeated. Soundly.

Slate's Dahlia Litwick unloads on SB484, explaining that lawmakers behind the legislation don't see what the big fucking deal is with forcing women to be penetrated by doctor as a prerequisite for pregnancy termination. After all, they consented to have sex, right? And isn't consenting to have sex once akin to consenting to have whatthefuckever put into your vagina? That's a jaw-droppingly insensitive and dangerous statement, but more than one Virginia delegate has actually said something to that effect.


Delegate Kathy J. Byron, for example, said "if we want to talk about invasiveness, there's nothing more invasive than the procedure that she is about to have." As Litwick points out, reading between the lines leads us to believe that Byron thinks that abortion involves inserting things into a woman's vagina and a woman is consenting to an abortion, she must therefore be consenting to have a doctor put any old thing into her vagina. An ultrasound wand. A Wii controller. A stethoscope!

But it gets worse. Writes Litwick,

During the floor debate on Tuesday, Del. C. Todd Gilbert announced that "in the vast majority of these cases, these [abortions] are matters of lifestyle convenience." (He has since apologized.) Virginia Democrat Del. David Englin, who opposes the bill, has said Gilbert's statement "is in line with previous Republican comments on the issue," recalling one conversation with a GOP lawmaker who told him that women had already made the decision to be "vaginally penetrated when they got pregnant."

I'll just leave this here. Give it a ponder.

Virginia's Proposed Ultrasound Law is an Abomination [Slate]