Thank You Justice Kennedy!
By Say this for anti-choicers, they’re extremely creative when it comes to finding new ways to humiliate women:
Unfortunately, the “fetal personhood” bill wasn’t the only nutty and frightening piece of legislation that Virginia’s House of Delegates passed. Another bill was advanced requiring a woman undergoing an abortion to have a “transvaginal ultrasound” — i.e., to require a doctor to insert a speculum and then an ultrasound probe into a her vagina against her will and reflect that image onscreen. Not only is a bill like this rather rape-y in its forcefulness — and yes, I realize that is a strong statement, and I mean it strongly — but there is no medically necessary reason to do so. And there are no exceptions. Gov. McDonnell has stated his intention to sign the “transvaginal ultrasound” bill if it lands on his desk.
The important thing, as always, is to remember that anti-choicers have the moral high ground — why, Dana Milbank himself said so!
You’d like to think that this kind of regulation would be the definition of an “undue burden,” a painful humiliation inflicted on women with no rational relationship to any legitimate state interest. Alas, were the Supreme Court to take this case there’s little question that Kennedy would enthusiastically vote to uphold it. “While we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon, it seems unexceptionable to conclude many women don’t object having a speculum inserted into their vagina without their consent and for no valid medical reason.”
…Pierce has more. Maddow’s segment was also very good.