Doonesbury and Trudeau

The Texas sonogram law passed by Governor Rick Perry is one that does indeed "rape" women. Understand this, women who choose to terminate a pregnancy will undergo a trans vaginal ultrasound almost 100% of the time. The requirement in Texas stands that any woman who wants an abortion has to first undergo an ultrasound using a 10 inch sonogram wand to obtain fetal information. In this way the law is absolutley forcing itself upon women i.e. raping them.

Now during the procedure we know that the wand is inserted to visually display the fetus. What the horrible wretched law requires next is just disgusting- the pregnant women is then forced to look at the image of her fetus and listen to the heartbeat. Then the woman goes home to spend 24 hours considering her decision to abort.

IF and only IF you decide to have an abortion and willingly put yourself in the care of the doctors and nurses who perform these screenings can you refrain from calling the insertion portion of this procedure rape. The remainder of the procedure, in my opinion, is more damaging to women then the actual abortion surgery or process.

Imagine the scariest scenario you can think and put a person with their eyes pried open (science fiction-Orwellian, whatever) and then add the beating of Poe's Tell Tale Heart. Do I exaggerate? Only by making these comments especially visceral and slightly dramatic- but even then I'm holding back from saying what a cruel unnecessary mind fuck law this is.

This weeks Doonesbury comic by Gary Trudeau has been pulled from some newspapers who aren't kosher with his take on the Texas law. This is the second time in his career that Trudeau has been pulled from certain papers. The strip begins with a Texas woman going to a clinic seeking an abortion. The nurse tells her- “The male Republicans who run Texas require that all abortion seekers be examined with a 10” shaming wand.”

There it is-

Another strip has a nurse ask the young lady if it is her first pregnancy termination and when the young women replies with yes she says "Then you'll need to fill out this form. Please take a seat in the shaming room."

Shame, shame, shame. If abortion is legal, which it is, the proverbial waging tsk tsk scolding finger is at least publicly removed. Before abortion was legalized you could literally be shamed to death for seeking one but now it's left up to the states and their governments to humiliate any women who allows herself (because there isn't anyone else involved of course) to get knocked up. Those who have the least invested in women's health spend time and resources on reversing the progress made in the field of reproductive rights.

Gary Trudeau has done something really important with Doonesbury this week. One, he has brilliantly captured the absurdities of the bill in Texas in a way that couldn't be easier to understand. Secondly, he has done so in a way that brings attention to the law regardless of an individuals stand point. Perhaps most importantly of all, Trudeau offers a rare (albeit satirical) view of the experience that so many feel they have the right to offer insight into- being a young women who seeks to hold herself first and exercise her legal rights to have an abortion.