Sonogram Law Must Be Enforced Immediately, Court Says
Texas abortion providers were hoping they'd have a few more weeks to start abiding by a state law requiring them to play the heartbeat of the fetus and describe its image on a sonogram at least 24 hours before performing the procedure.
They're not going to get it.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals approved Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott's request for immediate enforcement on Friday, meaning that clinics must scramble to comply — or face possible prosecution.
“The sooner we start providing sonograms to those considering abortions, the more lives we can save," Texas Gov. Rick Perry ...
Comments (62)
Jamie Lewis via Texas Tribune on Facebook
every policy maker who voted for this intrusion should be ASHAMED.
Katie Boal via Texas Tribune on Facebook
They should also have people listen to their large intestine before they eat a steak.
It would help trim some waistlines too.
Dave Mundy via Texas Tribune on Facebook
An "independent" family planning clinic and abortion provider? isn't that an oxymoron, like "unbiased media?"
Steve Olafson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
How do you know?
Mark Paulson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Its none of their business to tell a woman what to do with her body. For all the flag waving and freedom republicans do, they sure like to sensor language, tv, healthcare, how people live, and a lot of other personal freedoms. I do not like abortion, but this is America, and the right refuses to acknowledge that you can not stop a woman from a back alley abortion. Lets see them adopt of black crack babies that require methadone and cry constantly 24 hours a day. That is reality, they can not swallow it.
Brittney Marie via Texas Tribune on Facebook
According to the precedent set forth in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, there is no way the SCOTUS can uphold this. It clearly violates the 'undue burden' test set forth by the majority opinion. Suck on that Texas.
Alexandra Richmond via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Its a shame the state would never care to give this information to women say, before they get pregnant. Say in the form of ahealth class. Maybe even boys could be educated on what causes pregnancy, before it happens.
Mark Paulson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Our shelters and orphanages are overflowing and nobody will adopt them either, people adopt from other countries because those kids are so screwed up (no fault of their own), but then a large majority come out and commit crimes or live on welfare, 2 things the right hates. Life is a born consciount mind, not an unconscious developing group of cells.
Debbie Mason via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Then the father should have to see it also. Double standards when it comes to women and men.
Karen Spivey-Cummings via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Next you will see the Texas legislature introduce legislation to ban contraceptives.
Peggy Semingson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Birth control does fail, even for married people who are intentionally using birth control. It's not as simple as education and knowledge of cause-and-effect. Access to birth control is a whole other issue.
Vickie Merchant via Texas Tribune on Facebook
:(
Christie Gudowski via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Does the woman have the right to refuse the description or listening to the heartbeat?
Karen Spivey-Cummings via Texas Tribune on Facebook
No, access to birth control is not a whole other issue. Education on how to use birth control is key in prevention of unwanted pregnancies especially in teens. Generally, when birth control fails, it is because the product has not been used as prescribed or not used at all. http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2011/11/30/uga-study-higher-pregnancy-rates-in-states-with-abstinence-only-ed-programs-in-schools/
Tammy Alford via Texas Tribune on Facebook
My answer to Ms. Miller is that listening to the BABY's heartbeat most certainly can change a woman's mind about abortion! Here is the testimony of a woman who did change her mind:
Tammy Alford via Texas Tribune on Facebook
someone keeps deleting my link
Karen Spivey-Cummings via Texas Tribune on Facebook
http://reproductiverights.org/en/press-room/ignoring-objections-federal-appeals-court-green-lights-immediate-enforcement-of-intrusive
Karen Spivey-Cummings via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Tammy, FORCING the woman to do this is the objection. :) The choice should be hers, not the Texas legislature or courts. Get it?
Tammy Alford via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Here it is again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGjTeQKxqF8&feature=youtu.be
Tammy Alford via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I get it. I believe that life begins at conception, and so abortion to me it's murder. So, if it inconveniences the woman or makes her feel bad in doing so, then so be it. Of course, no woman who is getting an abortion is going to WANT to hear the baby's heartbeat or see a sonogram, but if it changes the mind of even one woman it is worth it.
Tammy Alford via Texas Tribune on Facebook
There are many laws that "force" us to do things, but they are there for the common good.
Leigh Williams via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Ridiculous. You act as if women are so stupid that they don't know an embryo has a heartbeat. I myself fail to see why a heartbeat in the absence of a brain would change any woman's mind. But it's not the intrusive nature of the sonogram that's the kicker in this bill; ti's the 24-hour waiting period. For poor women, most of whom have to take off work and travel to a distant city to even find abortion services, this provision is a significant economic burden. And that's on top of the insult of closing down Planned Parenthood offices around the state, thus cutting poor women off from birth control services. Republicans: shrinking government until it can fit into our uteruses.
Tammy Alford via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Look, we just have a difference of opinion on the issue. I feel strongly about it, and so do you. I will not change your mind and you will not change mine. I don't think that woman are stupid, I just think that by listening to the heartbeat it may cause them to stop and think about what they are doing.
Karen Spivey-Cummings via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Tammy, the woman should still have a choice. The difference between you and me is that I do not believe I, the state govt., govt. or anybody else has the right to force their opinions/religious beliefs on others when it comes to a woman's reproductive rights. This is not about *common good.*
Renee E. Babcock via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Tammy, so you're not saying women are stupid, you're just saying they don't know how to make a medical decision for themsrlves without the state helping them do it. But really, if a woman isn't thought of as capable of makong this decision in her own way, ien't.that exactly saying they're not smart enough to do it?
Tammy Alford via Texas Tribune on Facebook
So, should childhood immunizations be outlawed? They are "forced" on families who may not be able to afford them, and take away the freedom of choice on the matter.
Tammy Alford via Texas Tribune on Facebook
To me, it's not about reproductive rights, it's about life or death, that's where the difference of opinion lies.
Karen Spivey-Cummings via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Lame comparison using childhood immunizations/poverty but a real good reason to be pro choice.
Steve Munday via Texas Tribune on Facebook
i respectfully disagree with Ms. Miller.
Karen Spivey-Cummings via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Yes, you would Steve because you are a man.
Renee E. Babcock via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Tammy, but that's just it, it is about reproductive rights. You are not framing the issue correctly. The problem with so many anti-choice people is that they make this about them.and their feelings, when it's not about them, it's about the rights of women to make their medical decisions, decisions that in no way, directly or indirectly, affect others (unlike the unrelated issue of vacinations, which has a huge impact on others, not the least of which leaving children with no voice vulnerable to the beliefs of adults, but that's not what we're talking about here).
David Huang via Texas Tribune on Facebook
If you feel abortion is murder, then don't do it. But your beliefs should not hinder other people (who may also feel it's "murder") from being able to go through with it. There might be social/economic reasons for them to not be able to go through with a pregnancy. This is not about being "pro-life", it's about taking away a woman's ability to choose for herself whether she wants to undergo a very personal and private procedure.
But hey, I'm a guy, so obviously I just don't get it.
David Huang via Texas Tribune on Facebook
And you can't compare childhood immunizations to abortion either. Abortion affects only those who undergo them (and their immediate circle, I guess), whereas a child who does not get immunized for something may put other people at risk. They're completely different issues.
Mark Paulson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The govt can not tell a woman what to do with her body. It was reaffirmed in the SCOTUS. The religious right it trying to impose their will in government. Never.
Tammy Alford via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Renee, leaving children with no voice vulnerable to the beliefs of adults is exactly what we are talking about. An unborn child is still a child, and we who are able to should stand for those who are unable to stand. It's a sad fact that we have laws that protect the eggs of bald eagles, but allow the killing of unborn children. You and I just see things from a completely different perspective. I don't believe that anyone has the "right" to take another human's life... whether that falls under "reproductive rights" or under some other cause. Label it what you will, it's still murder.
Tammy Alford via Texas Tribune on Facebook
And, just so everyone is clear, the comparison to immunization laws was to the fact that we have laws that dictate in other ways what is done to our bodies. Everyone is ok with those because no one wants a disease, right? It's ok for the government to step in when it affects others, but what about the unborn? How does abortion affect them? Abortion DOES affect more than just the woman involved, it affects the baby involved.
Renee E. Babcock via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Tammy, no it is not. There is a world of difference between a fetus and a.7 year old going to school with measles and spreading it. You are truly missing the point that another woman's medical decisions are none of your business. Period.
Tammy Alford via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I think that I must be the only person who read this article and has a pro-life view. This issue can be debated all night, but I have said what I believe, and I have the right to my opinion as much as anyone else.
Renee E. Babcock via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I don't care what you believe, Tammy. But I do care you forcing others to act on your beliefs.
Terri Russo Daugherty via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The point of the law is not to change anyone's mind. Under 12 weeks there are no organs, no heartbeat etc.
The point is to force providers of this perfectly legal and private procedure to but expensive equipment and thus place a burden on the health care provider.
So if you have your abortion scheduled for next week and the provider does not have the right machine, they will have to send you to another provider.
Dominic J. Eidson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I'm glad my mother was pro-choice and chose to carry me to term and give me up for adoption, instead of aborting me like her grandparents were pushing for.
Rudy Gonzales
All Sonogram/Ultrasound exam bills must be paid for by the Texas Legislature immediately!
Kim Burkett via Texas Tribune on Facebook
So much for small government and keeping government control out of our lives. I don't know how conservatives' brains just don't spontaneously explode from the hypocrisy, circular logic, and downright crazy rationalizations.
Terri Russo Daugherty via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I forgot... If a health care provider does not have the machine with the options required by this law, the doctor much buy it and pass the cost along to patients.
Is there a law about what sort of machine my eye doctor has to have? And mandatory language the doc must use during the procedure? Why are OBGYN offices allowed to be harassed in this way?
Brenda K Gunter via Texas Tribune on Facebook
This decision is not about protecting women's health. If it were, why provide an exception for hearing the description when rape, incest, or a fetal abnormality is involved?
Rachel McClellan Bohannon via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Amy Miller of Whole Women's Health cannot know what a woman will or will not choose. Her statement is--no pun intended--fatalistic. The truth of a sonogram can be very persuasive.
Casey McKinney via Texas Tribune on Facebook
in texas immunizations are free to those who cannot afford them. CPS is overrun with children that are abused, neglected, etc, shouldn't we worry more about them. If had to choose between being aborted or being abused, I take the abortion.
Casey McKinney via Texas Tribune on Facebook
if you are anti choice, you should adopt several children.
Leigh Williams via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Tammy, you certainly have a right to your opinion. What you don't have a right to is OTHER WOMEN'S BODIES.
jrd
Karen Spivey-Cummings: "Yes, you would Steve because you are a man."
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patricia bird
Sonograms - brought to you by the party who wants less government interference. Ron Paul, the person who yells about mandating health care said, “this always should have been the law here”. I guess they feel they have shrunk government enough in TX to fit it inside a woman’s uterus. This is not the “jelly on the stomach” procedure; this is a vaginal probe. Talk about being raped by the State of TX. If this does not get men and women (since we are the majority in this country) out to vote to send home anyone who voted for this, I don’t know what will. This is a disgrace. I can’t think of another Legal Procedure that goes threw this nonsense. When the State of TX makes it a criminal offense for a man to impregnate a woman without standing by her side during this procedure, legally liable to support this fetus from cradle to grave, then they need to stop punishing women. For all the saber rattling this Governor does over Iraq and Iran, this State is being run by a Theocratic group who are imposing their will on the citizens of this State. Perhaps next they can make a law stating that everyone who consumes alcohol, must put an interlock on your car, pay for it, and keep it there until you learn to stop engaging in this legal activity.
patricia bird
The patient must be presented with a sonogram and an audible fetal heartbeat, if detectable, which they can refuse to see or hear. Even if they did, doctors would still be have to orally describe organ, limb and other fetal developments detected on the sonogram.
patricia bird
Brenda Sendejo and her husband, Tommy Ademski, spoke against the bill. The Austin couple tried for years to get pregnant and ultimately succeeded three years ago.
But at 14 weeks, they discovered their baby suffered a chromosomal abnormality and would unlikely survive to term. If born, the child would live no longer “than a day or a week,” Ademski said, struggling with the words.
They decided to terminate the pregnancy.
“I never imagined I would be a pro-choice advocate,” Ademski said, adding that it would have been overwhelming to be forced to have another superfluous sonogram, and then have to stop the doctor from presenting a description, ask for a heart monitor to be turned off and the sonogram screen to be turned away.
“We already knew everything,” he said. “I just cannot support legislation that would require someone to suffer that pain again.”
patricia bird
Karen - I went to you link...and what I found amazing was the written statement under the video
Pregnant again? Mia tells her story in her own words. Single, with a five-month-old son, she found herself in what seemed like a catastrophic crisis. "Choice" implies a range of alternatives, but for Mia, the only alternative
THE WORD IS CHOICE...that is what the State of TX is denying to all women- making a choice what is best for them. What in the world have we become when we allow Men, the Governor, Ron Paul, Santorum, Evangelical preachers, most of them men, men in the Legislature who demand an invasive procedure for a woman...we have become no better than the ones in whose country we are now bombing who dictate to women what they must wear, that they cannot drive, and that they must pass a virginity test or can be put to death for being raped.
This is a legal procedure done by a medical doctor. Over 80% of the people in the U.S. say they feel it is a woman's CHOICE...and that is the operative word...if you don't want one, don't have one.
But please leave your critique of what women should and should not do to your own life. I have had 2 friends who had the make the horrific choice when they and their husbands found that the child they were carrying was too deformed to carry to term. One was never able to have more children. The agony and despair faced by these couples did not need to be compounded by some religious fanatics who wish to ram their opinions and values down our throats.
Please go to CPS or Lena Pope or any foster care facility and rid these places of children who long for parents, who long for a better life, who long for stability and find themselves being abused and neglected. When you and yours have placed every one of these children in loving homes, then come back and we will discuss abortion. You see I work in the criminal justice arena and must face the kids who are raped and abused by family members...so make sure these kids are safe, loved and taken care of before you go and insist your values and religious views are embraced by everyone.
Jose B. Gonzalez via Texas Tribune on Facebook
It's a minor inconvenience - if it saves ONE life - it was worth it... Damn, I'm actually agreeing on something with the "steer of the year" (Perry)... I agree with all the people who say everyone should have a choice - INCLUDING THE UNBORN CHILD - so until someone invents a gadget where the unborn child can speak for itself & CHOSE - someone has to fight against it being murdered/butchered... How's that for CHOICE...
Leigh Williams via Texas Tribune on Facebook
An unborn "child" of less than 23-24 weels gestation has no way to make a choice, having no brain with which to think. Stupid argument. Better do your fallback, which is that an embryo or fetus has the "potential" to be a child. In which case we'll respond with "An acorn is not an oak tree." And also with, "'Right to life means mandatory kidney donations from everyone." Let me know when you get on board with other people having a right to your organs; in the meantime, you don't get to decide who (or more accurately, what in the case of an embryo) gets mine.
Jose B. Gonzalez via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I like my argument better - however unpalatable it may be to you... There are many arguments to be made... Here's another one for you. A grown woman with an unplanned pregnancy should learn to take some type of birth control, or ensure her partner wears a condom, or maybe she can learn to keep her legs crossed a little more often... Or here's another: a woman should have the right to do whatever she wants to her body, put in her body anything she pleases, to include cocaine, heroin or any poison of her choice - but she forfeits that right when she fails to prevent an unplanned pregnancy - if she doesn't want to give up that right - then be responsible & keep your legs crossed until you become a responsible person... We all have a stance on this matter, mine starts & ends on the killing/butchering/murder of an unborn child - or whatever you chose to call it in order to desensitize yourself from the truth...
Leigh Williams via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Birth control fails sometimes. That is a reality. But I have a better idea for preventing pregnancy than "women, keep your legs crossed". I suggest that the man responsible for the pregnancy be neutered. That will go much further towards reducing unplanned pregnancy than keeping legs crossed, right? Because an irresponsible man can engender many more unwanted babies than a woman can.
What, this isn't a good idea? You're all for meddling with other people's bodies as long as they're women, but I'll bet you go ape when I suggest that violating a man's bodily autonomy as a punishment for sexual "sin" is okay.
Leigh Williams via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Because really, your goal is to punish women who have sex you don't approve of. It's not all about the little bitty babies, it's about your conviction that women's bodies are subject to your opinions about their morality.
And by the way, having an abortion _is_ a responsible action.
Jose B. Gonzalez via Texas Tribune on Facebook
You are a nut!!! I bet you would be one of the first who could use a lesson on keeping their legs crossed... ;-)
Jackie McPherson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Jose, I didn't think in a zillion years I'd be siding *against* a pro-lifer, because I had never come across people like you and thought they were a myth. I'm ashamed to admit that I was wrong. You aren't 'pro-life' in any sense that I would recognise it; instead, you are in 'pro-' anything that gives you a chance to revile other people whilst giving yourself a pat on the back for being superior. Your attitude disgusts me, and if you are typical of the USA 'pro-life' movement I am glad that I was never involved in it.
Jose B. Gonzalez via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Don't blame or credit me for your flip flopping on issues. I stand by my comments and position. When I'm called stupid or implied like Leigh did - she loses the benefit of me being civil - act like a lady be treated like a lady. Act like XXXXXX (fill in your choice) - then be ready to be treated like one. I stand alone on my beliefs & comments, I don't represent anyone but my damn self, don't use me as an excuse for your lack of convictions.