Virginia’s Ultrasound Bill Makes No Exceptions For Rape Or Incest

Image from Alexander Raths/ Shutterstock
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The Virginia House is due to vote Wednesday on a bill which would require women seeking an abortion to undergo an ultrasound. This is the final step before the bill arrives on the governor’s desk.

The bill requires that the ultrasound operation helps show the physical aspects of the fetus and also detects a heartbeat. Since most abortions are sought during the first 12 weeks of a pregnancy, when the fetus is little larger than a grain of rice, this means many women would not undergo a procedure like the one depicted in the picture above. Instead, they would be obliged to endure an invasive “transvaginal” procedure. This has led opponents of the bill – many of them Democrats – to decry it as “state-sponsored rape.”

This only adds to another controversial aspect of the bill: that unlike many laws which regulate abortion, Virginia’s does not contain exemptions for victims of rape or incest.

“For someone who’s already been victimized to do it again is just cruel and unusual punishment,” Tarina Keene, Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia, told TPM.

Several proponents of the bill have admitted have admitted that the procedure is invasive but justify it as no different from intercourse. CNN contributor and conservative blogger Dana Loesch objected to the idea that the bill is tantamount to state-sponsored rape, saying, “Wait a minute, they had no problem having similar to a trans-vaginal procedure when they engaged in the act that resulted in their pregnancy.” One GOP lawmaker in Virginia made the same argument, that the woman already decided to be “vaginally penetrated when they got pregnant.” The bill, like these proponents of it, doesn’t take into account that not all pregnancies come out of consensual sex.

The bill has been garnering negative attention and even protests over the past few weeks, and there are signs Republicans are feeling uneasy about passing the bill in its current form. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell — a national figure and contender for the GOP’s vice presidential nomination — has backed off his unflinching support for the bill. Keene told TPM’s Jillian Rayfield that she is more hopeful now than before that some sort of compromise, possibly one that makes the ultrasound optional, could be reached.

Image from Alexander Raths/ Shutterstock

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