Ohio Governor John Kasich signed a new $62 billion budget for the state over the weekend that slashed taxes for the wealthiest Ohioans while at the same time mandates medically unnecessary ultrasounds and guts Planned Parenthood. These new abortion restrictions received no debate before being signed into law. Instead they were included in the budget bill in hopes that no one would notice. Especially anyone who believes that politicians have no right to make decisions for women when it comes to their personal health care choices. After all, women (according to the men making these laws) are simply not capable of thinking for themselves.
In addition, the budget targets rape crisis centers. Restrictions are being imposed as to what rape counselors can say to victims who have been impregnated by their rapists. If the counselors dare discuss abortion options the clinics will have their public funding suspended. Furthermore, clinics that provide abortion services will be required to obtain transfer agreements with local hospitals should the woman need to be transferred due to a medical emergency. However, the budget bans public hospitals from establishing these agreements. This new bill also requires physicians to provide false information to women seeking an abortion. It compels abortion providers to tell patients that a fetus can feel pain and that a woman who has an abortion can increase her risk for breast cancer. Providing false and/or misleading medical information to their female patients throws the Hippocratic Oath out the window, to say the least. Clearly, Kasich and all other Republican Governors signing these sweeping abortion restrictions into law believe it’s perfectly okay if physicians lie to their patients… or for Health Teachers to lie to their students.
Women Want to be Forced to have a medically unnecessary ultrasound
Republicans in state legislatures across the country have pushed legislation that requires women to undergo an ultrasound procedure 24 hours before terminating their pregnancy. The so-called “informed consent” laws usually require women to be given a picture of the fetus and be shown a fetal heartbeat, along with general information about abortion.
“The more the ultrasounds have become part of the law, where a woman gets the opportunity to see that there’s a real child, it’s beginning to change minds, and I think that’s a good thing,” former Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) said on NBC’s Meet the Press over the weekend. (As if women have NO idea that they’re carrying a “real child.” Contrary to what DeMint thinks, a woman knows what it means to be pregnant.)
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow pointed out that women are being forced, by State Law, to have a medically unnecessary ultrasound, and that in many cases they would be subjected to trans-vaginal ultrasounds; which can be a painful experience in and of itself.
“So it’s an invasive vaginal forced procedure that a woman cannot say no to by order of the state government,” Maddow continued. “And that is all right with you. I understand that. You feel that you’ve got an interest strong enough to override a woman’s desire to not have that happen to her that you can insist that it does as a legislator. But most American women I think are going to balk at that.”
DeMint, however, insisted that some women wanted the state to force them to have an ultrasound.
“She’s forgetting about the thousands of women who want an informed choice, who want the opportunity to get a free ultrasound, which they can get not from Planned Parenthood but from a lot of these pregnancy centers.”
Rachel tried to point out the fact that these ultrasounds are not “free,” but DeMint wouldn’t let truth get in the way of his ridiculous argument.
Life begins with…. the election of a new Governor
Ohio Republicans have also redefined “pregnancy” and “fetus” in ways that could affect the availability of certain forms of birth control. Ohio Republicans have defined fetus as “human offspring developing during pregnancy from the moment of conception and includes the embryonic stage of development,” and declared pregnancy as beginning with “fertilization.” Biological science, by contrast, defines pregnancy as beginning with the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterine lining since a fertilized egg isn’t guaranteed to become an embryo; it can fail to implant and be expelled by the body. This means that you may need to get an ultrasound in order to refill your birth control prescription.
Women are being forced back into the dark ages, when men were in total control over women and a back-ally abortion was her only option. The majority of women who undergo illegal abortions are those who are very poor and do not have access to family planning facilities for education and prevention of unwanted pregnancies. Making abortion illegal has no effect on the total number of abortions performed. All it does is increase the risk of death to woman who make the extremely difficult decision to have an abortion.
