The problem at my age having read a shit load of both fiction and politics is sometimes I get the two worlds crossed. Take this week. I guess I thought I was living in 2012 America—quirky, polarized, crazy as hell in the South, sure--but still bound by the Supreme Court ruling in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey,, 505 U.S. 833 (1992). You remember, that pesky little no “undue burden standard” left us by Sandra Day O’Connor when she was the swing vote darling on the Supreme Court? What was undue burden? Well, it was O’Connor’s grand bargain, tenuously upholding a woman’s right to choose an abortion if need be, but it prevented states from placing any "substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability." I went to sleep last night thinking that decision was still in place and that birth control was a standard and accepted feature of women’s health. I slumbered in a blissfully ignorant state where the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause protects more than just corporate speech. It protects my daughter’s privacy.
But good gynecological gawd! I awoke this morning, not in America, but scared shitless in Gilead, Margaret Atwood’s cautionary theocratic and authoritarian hell for women. If you haven’t read that book, The Handmaid’s Tale, you’d recognize the setting—it’s a lot like Texas, Oklahoma, and now Virginia. These are the clever uber-patriarchal states that have passed “transvaginal ultrasound laws,” which require women to submit to having rods with cameras rammed up their vaginas for no medical purpose other than to shame the women and edify the Republican right. Seriously, this week’s news is so much like Atwood’s 1986 “scare-your-Victoria-Secrets-panties-off” world where fundamentalists are in power and female suffrage, contraception, abortion, hell even women’s literacy are verboten that I’m sporting a red robe tonight. The Gilead she portrayed put dissidents, non-Christians, and homosexuals to death. In this dick-led dystopia, pollutants damaged the nation’s inhabitants to the point of mass infertility. So those in the high echelons who were eggless or with sperm that preferred to hang out and pray rather than swim used “handmaids” for procreation. Those “lucky” women with a good crop of eggs were treasured brood sows for barren, upper crust Christian couples. Offred, named for Fred, the commander who owns her (Of Fred—get it?), must endure monthly couplings when Fred mounts her like a sweaty, panting missionary while she lies between his seething wife’s legs. Yuck. The image of Rick Santorum in this role is doing me a hell of a lot of emotional damage that might only be remedied by a full Saturday of George Clooney movies and a Costco pack of D cell batteries. Without such an intervention, I might become completely asexual.
But let’s explore these “transvaginal ultrasound laws.” Of course, they’re not called that. No, they’re dressed up in nice little Orwellian dresses like Virginia’s law, which claims it’s all part of “informed consent for abortion.” But when women “consent” to the abortion, those “Commanders of the Faithful”—that top tier crowd of men quite pious and planted in Virginia’s legislature-- have written the law so that women also “consent” to having their vaginas probed by a ultrasound wand. In other words, no camera up your vagina; no abortion. There’s no consent at all.
This procedure, of course, is entirely unnecessary. In fact, according to the American College of Radiology and the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine, “for first-trimester ultrasound scanning, ACOG recommends trans-vaginal or trans-perineal scanning if the trans-abdominal exam is not definitive. ACOG offers a list of 12 “indications” for doing this type of scan, which include attempts to confirm a suspected ectopic pregnancy, to assess for fetal anomalies, to evaluate vaginal bleeding or pelvic pain, or to estimate gestational age.” (VA Ultrasound Bill at Odds with Medical Standards) Abortion simply didn’t make their list. So the only reason to write such a procedure into law is to humiliate and intimidate a woman seeking an abortion.
Virginia, of course, is not alone in passing these state in your woo hoo laws. And who's really surprised that Texas has one? I mean really. In Texas, the “OfRicks”, or women whose vaginas are now property of the state should they choose abortion are required to sign this “consent” form:
This procedure, of course, is entirely unnecessary. In fact, according to the American College of Radiology and the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine, “for first-trimester ultrasound scanning, ACOG recommends trans-vaginal or trans-perineal scanning if the trans-abdominal exam is not definitive. ACOG offers a list of 12 “indications” for doing this type of scan, which include attempts to confirm a suspected ectopic pregnancy, to assess for fetal anomalies, to evaluate vaginal bleeding or pelvic pain, or to estimate gestational age.” (VA Ultrasound Bill at Odds with Medical Standards) Abortion simply didn’t make their list. So the only reason to write such a procedure into law is to humiliate and intimidate a woman seeking an abortion.
Virginia, of course, is not alone in passing these state in your woo hoo laws. And who's really surprised that Texas has one? I mean really. In Texas, the “OfRicks”, or women whose vaginas are now property of the state should they choose abortion are required to sign this “consent” form:
“(6) I UNDERSTAND THAT I AM REQUIRED BY LAW TO
HEAR AN EXPLANATION OF THE SONOGRAM IMAGES UNLESS I
CERTIFY IN WRITING TO ONE OF THE FOLLOWING:
___ I AM PREGNANT AS A RESULT OF A SEXUAL ASSAULT,
INCEST, OR OTHER VIOLATION OF THE TEXAS PENAL CODE THAT
HAS BEEN REPORTED TO LAW ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITIES OR
THAT HAS NOT BEEN REPORTED BECAUSE I REASONABLY
BELIEVE THAT DOING SO WOULD PUT ME AT RISK OF
RETALIATION RESULTING IN SERIOUS BODILY INJURY.
___ I AM A MINOR AND OBTAINING AN ABORTION IN
ACCORDANCE WITH JUDICIAL BYPASS PROCEDURES UNDER
CHAPTER 33, TEXAS FAMILY CODE.
___ MY FETUS HAS AN IRREVERSIBLE MEDICAL
CONDITION OR ABNORMALITY, AS IDENTIFIED BY RELIABLE
DIAGNOSTIC PROCEDURES AND DOCUMENTED IN MY MEDICAL
FILE.”
HEAR AN EXPLANATION OF THE SONOGRAM IMAGES UNLESS I
CERTIFY IN WRITING TO ONE OF THE FOLLOWING:
___ I AM PREGNANT AS A RESULT OF A SEXUAL ASSAULT,
INCEST, OR OTHER VIOLATION OF THE TEXAS PENAL CODE THAT
HAS BEEN REPORTED TO LAW ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITIES OR
THAT HAS NOT BEEN REPORTED BECAUSE I REASONABLY
BELIEVE THAT DOING SO WOULD PUT ME AT RISK OF
RETALIATION RESULTING IN SERIOUS BODILY INJURY.
___ I AM A MINOR AND OBTAINING AN ABORTION IN
ACCORDANCE WITH JUDICIAL BYPASS PROCEDURES UNDER
CHAPTER 33, TEXAS FAMILY CODE.
___ MY FETUS HAS AN IRREVERSIBLE MEDICAL
CONDITION OR ABNORMALITY, AS IDENTIFIED BY RELIABLE
DIAGNOSTIC PROCEDURES AND DOCUMENTED IN MY MEDICAL
FILE.”
Talk about the progressive part of Gilead! At least in Texas, if you've been raped, a second penetration of your vagina may be waved with the above clause. Those boys are so thoughtful down there. Across the border in Oklahoma, that's where you'll find some tough fundamentalist sons-of-bitches though. By God, rape is no excuse there! No whining! No sympathy. Suck it up! Here comes the wand. The commanders are fully in charge in the "Sooner State."
And hell, I haven't even started talking about the "personhood laws." Laws that make birth control that prevents implantation after fertilization illegal, not to mention thirty other scenarios I can't even begin to write about. Blood pressure....eating binge...too many side effects for me at this point. (Deep breath and sigh.)
Clearly we’re all living in a scary land. Our daughters are nothing more than “two-legged wombs, that’s all: sacred vessels, ambulatory chalices.” (The Handmaid’s Tale) Rick Santorum, about three hairs to the right of Pope Benedict XVI, says of contraception: “It’s not okay because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. They’re supposed to be within marriage, they are supposed to be for purposes that are, yes, conjugal, but also [inaudible], but also procreative.” Today Darrel Issa, “Chair-commander” of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, framed nicely an investigation on women’s health coverage entitled “Lines Crossed: Separation of Church and State: Has the Obama Administration trampled on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience?” That he didn’t allow women to testify made it clear what kind of rules we’re to operate under in Gilead.
And hell, I haven't even started talking about the "personhood laws." Laws that make birth control that prevents implantation after fertilization illegal, not to mention thirty other scenarios I can't even begin to write about. Blood pressure....eating binge...too many side effects for me at this point. (Deep breath and sigh.)
Clearly we’re all living in a scary land. Our daughters are nothing more than “two-legged wombs, that’s all: sacred vessels, ambulatory chalices.” (The Handmaid’s Tale) Rick Santorum, about three hairs to the right of Pope Benedict XVI, says of contraception: “It’s not okay because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. They’re supposed to be within marriage, they are supposed to be for purposes that are, yes, conjugal, but also [inaudible], but also procreative.” Today Darrel Issa, “Chair-commander” of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, framed nicely an investigation on women’s health coverage entitled “Lines Crossed: Separation of Church and State: Has the Obama Administration trampled on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience?” That he didn’t allow women to testify made it clear what kind of rules we’re to operate under in Gilead.
So get busy. Here's a way to start.
1. Send your senator an email: Senate emails
2. Send your member of Congress an email:House email link
3. You might send a note to Representative Darrel Issa and let him know that women should be a part of any discussion of birth control: Representative Darrell Issa
4. A boycott of Virginia and letting Governor Bob McDonnell know why you won't be visiting might be a nice touch:Governor Bob McDonnell, Virginia
Of course, that's just a start. There are other ways...but no need wasting a good snit.
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