Today I listened to "
The State of Things," a local public radio program here in NC. I wanted to catch today's show because host Frank Stasio moderated a conversation on NC's new anti-choice law and the history of family planning in the U.S. The guests included Senator Warren Daniel (R-Burke & Caldwell), who is a primary sponsor of the bill; Dr. Charles Monteith, Medical Director of
Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina; and Bebe Anderson, senior counsel with the
Center for Reproductive Rights. So here are a few additional tidbits I learned about this new law and abortion access in NC:
- Under this new law women seeking abortion are required to have an ADDITIONAL ultrasound. It's already standard procedure to get one ultrasound, but now, as I understand it, she'll be required to wait and get a second one within 72 hours of the first. She can choose to avert her eyes during the procedure, but if she does, she must sign a piece of paper that is kept by the provider for 7 years (no idea why).
- Who will pay for this second ultrasound? In many cases, the woman herself will. If she can't afford it, she may have to go to a "crisis pregnancy center," which are anti-choice institutions that provide ultrasounds that won't cost you anything in dollars but will cost you significantly in dignity, self-respect, and emotional burden.
- NC already has informed consent laws that require doctors to provide information about a patient's options before any procedure, including abortion. Dr. Monteith made this very clear.
- There are similar laws in other states, but in most of these states - even TEXAS! - exceptions are granted in the case of rape, incest, fetal anomaly, and other exceptional circumstances. The only exception of the NC law is life-or-death emergency.
This terrible, terrible law is based on assumption that women are not thinking about their decision at all. It is based entirely on politics, not on medicine - in fact, it goes AGAINST medical recommendations. According to Dr. Monteith,"making women wait and delay endangers their lives." He points out that doctors are already professionally and legally obligated to provide a woman who is seeking an abortion the necessary and medically-appropriate information. He further points out that many women in NC have limited access to a family planning clinic or abortion provider. For many women, it's a burden and inconvenience to take off work and find someone to watch her kids so she can make the 2-4 hours drive to the clinic in the first place; being forced to wait an additional period and have multiple ultrasounds just further burdens her. Dr. Monteith also points out that the state is dictating to the doctor what to tell every single women who desires an abortion, no matter what the circumstances are (age, whether or not they're already a parent, medical history, etc.). It's the same, politically-motivated, medically-unsound, anti-choice script for every single woman. Doctors already provide individualized, medically-sound guidance to women seeking an abortion, and this new law "forces government speech into the doctor's mouth," "violates medical ethics," and "hijacks doctor-patient relationship and inserts [the] government in between." (these were all said by Stasio's guests, but I missed which quote belongs to which guest). There are some legal challenges underway to remove similar laws in other states (they are attempting to argue that it's unconstitutional to require a woman to listen to government-mandated speech in the privacy of her doctor's office), but I'm not sure how optimistic I am about these challenges succeeding.
Senator Warren Daniel's defense of this law made me want to throw my radio (actually my computer) against a wall. I'm not kidding - he actually compared this new law to refinancing a house or getting a divorce! He defended the fact that women will now be forced to wait for an abortion by pointing out there are government-mandated waiting periods for receiving a divorce or refinancing a house. He also stated that this new law is expected to reduce the abortion rate by ~10%, resulting in 3,000 extra new lives (per year, I think - I missed the details on this). I want Senator Daniels on my dodgeball team, because when Stasio asked (twice!) if there would be an increase in social services and public education spending to pay for these 3,000 new lives, Senator Daniel rambled a bit about how great it was that 3,000 lives would be saved and that public education costs are calculated on a per student basis. So, it was crystal-clear that his true answer to this question is "NO."
Toward the end of the conversation, I think it was Bebe Anderson who noted that there is no such imposition on men seeking medical procedures related to their reproductive health. So this gets me thinking...hey Senator Daniels! Why don't you introduce a bill that forces men to listen to anti-choice speech and wait 24 hours before having a vasectomy? Or forces men to listen to feminist, men-are-pigs rhetoric and wait 72 hours before purchasing Viagra? Or that forces gun buyers to listen to liberal anti-gun spew and view violent images of gun crime victims and wait 96 hours before purchasing a weapon? None of these scenarios are any more ridiculous, intrusive, and oppressive than the one you and your anti-choice cronies have inflicted upon the women of North Carolina.
