Judges: Texas Can Enforce Sonogram Law Now
A panel of federal appellate judges has authorized Texas officials to enforce a controversial abortion sonogram law while its constitutionality is being challenged in court.
In an opinion, the judges said the measure's opponents "failed to demonstrate constitutional flaws" in the measure, which they said was "fatal" to their effort to prevent it from taking effect.
The abortion sonogram law, which lawmakers passed last legislative session, requires doctors to perform sonograms and describe what they see, including the size of the fetus and the length of its limbs. The measure has been in court almost since it passed, with ...
Comments (25)
Karen Spivey-Cummings via Texas Tribune on Facebook
:(
Gigi ATexaslady via Texas Tribune on Facebook
A giant step back towards the Stone Age and ugly back-alley abortions again. Will women ever be in charge of their own bodies?
Judy Burns via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Wow
Rick Scott McGuckin via Texas Tribune on Facebook
really? free speech for doctors? puh-leeeze. What about the invasive procedure required just to inform patient?
Bill Conley via Texas Tribune on Facebook
If I didn't know better, I would say this sounds like the work of activist judges.
Judith Banks Ford via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Of course, wealthy conservative women--the ones who really do use abortion for birth control--will never have to endure this indignity
Jalapeno Schwartz via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Total interference in medical practice. Just basic harassment of people seeking a legal medical procedure
Mike Openshaw via Texas Tribune on Facebook
No more invasive than many requirements under HIPPA or any number of requirements the government puts on medicine for the purpose of full disclosure. This IS full disclosure. Hardly back to the 'stone age' nor backroom abortions; although, considering some recent news items, back alley abortions have merely moved into some abortion mill clinics as a 'protected right' without proper medical supervision.
Cris Sleightholm
When it comes to women having control of their bodies, we are still in the Dark Ages.
Robert Rister via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I knew two women, who would both now be in their 90's, who had "back alley" abortions in the 1930's. Both of them suffered the effects of infection and incontinence and mourned infertility all the rest of their lives. I'm not in favor of abortion, but I'm even less in favor of botched abortions.
Evelyn Castellano Escamilla via Texas Tribune on Facebook
No more invasive than the HIPPA? Having a long wand placed up your hoo-ha is the same as a policy disclosing medical information? Are you kidding me? Oh wait...ur a man and you don't have a clue.
Rudy Gonzales
There they go again! The narrow-minded, fringe-elite Terroristic Evangelical Activist(TEA) forcing their religious beliefs onto Texas women as if they had no rights at all. This will preclude any "Hippocratic Oath" taken by physicians in Texas. Who in Sam-Hell appointed these mindless "Nitnoi's" in charge of everyone in Texas? Texas needs to become a two party state, as these Terroristic Evangelical Agnostics(TEA) running the Texas Legislature has no touch with reality. Every right-winged TEA-GOP-Republican in Texas are perfect candidates for a "Rectal Encephaloectomy"!
Glenda Hawthorne
If I were a woman in this situation, I would lay on the table, stick my fingers in my ears, close my eyes and say, "no, no, no, no, no" until the doctor was finished with his "explanation". I don't believe they can force the woman to see or listen.
Mike Openshaw via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Evelyn, I watched them do sonograms on my wife- externally- during her pregnancy. Worked 8 years in the medical profession- some of it just before Roe v Wade- when abortions were STILL being done, but in full medical facilities (and under varying state laws).
Sam Davis via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Mike, that's one of the stupidest comments I've seen in a long time. Abortion mills? Really? What an idiotic statement. Most places providing abortion, Planned Parenthood in particular, offer counseling and adoption options. They also provide birth control to lower income women as well as services like well-woman visits. It's idiots like you that throw labels around and really show disdain for the disadvantaged.
Barbara Verby Hartstein via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't this coming from the people who want less government in the lives of the people?
Frances Demps via Texas Tribune on Facebook
But Perry and his ilk are against a no texting while driving law because they don't want to interfere in our personal lives.
Beverly Nuckols via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Ultrasounds are not shaming, they're not backward, they are standard of care and being done on every sonogram already. Just try to find a doctor who's not doing the Ultrasound! BTW, the Constitution doesn't say that judges make important laws and the Legislature only gets insignificant decisions.
Beverly Nuckols via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Ultrasounds are not shaming, they're not backward, they are standard of care and being done on every abortion already. Just try to find a doctor who's not doing the Ultrasound before an abortion! BTW, the Constitution doesn't say that judges make important laws and the Legislature only gets insignificant decisions.
Anya Khan
Good. Too many people see the slaughter of their child as a convenient option. You should know you are killing a living person.
Leon Drozd
Reminds me of something the Taliban would do.
JC DemocratofTejas
Yeah, good luck with that! Who pays for this Texas Legislators and Ricki Baby Dumbhair Perry? The he-man women haters club glorified! What is it about sex that scares these people? Is it just the need for masses to steal from? There is no humanity involved in this decision.
JC DemocratofTejas
Bravo Rudy.
Mike O. what happened? Got kicked out of the "medical profession?" No doubt. Yep, fat, white man no likes the ladies.
Garvin
Only in our beloved backward state would such a law be contrived. At some point one has to wonder about the right wing minset. All the talk of freedom and liberty.....but keep momma barefoot and preggers. Wow.
Hil Pryce
To say that this is merely in the interest of full disclosure is complete bs. This is just another way to back door requirements that place undue burdens on women. This is a medically unnecessary procedure, and there is a major elephant in the room that people seem to be overlooking. Sonograms cost MONEY. Should we force patients to pay for medically unnecessary procedures on the basis of an irreconcilable debate about personhood which is more philosophical than scientific?
If this really is in the interest of full disclosure, which I am of the opinion that it is not, then doctors should also be required to FULLY DISCLOSE the costs of raising children. Since we don't care anymore whether these statements are medically necessary, as long as they are true statements then they fit into the courts new standard of how the state can dictate the doctor-patient conversation... in the interest of full disclosure, of course.
Reading about this kind of legislation reminds me of a statement by Jon Stewart on the conservative pro-life perspective, that they don't care about whether mothers can afford adequate pre-natal and neo-natal care, that they vehemently object to funding for contraceptives, and that they continually try to cut welfare funding for the duration of the lives of children born into households that can't afford them. But for those few moments when the child is crowning... that baby is the most precious thing in the world.