You read that right. Under legislation already passed in the House in Virginia (which the governor has promised to sign) if you seek a legal abortion there, the new law literally requires a forced vaginal invasion — a “transvaginal ultrasound“. The other, the “personhood” law, criminalizes the birth control pill, stem cell research, perhaps even the In Vitro Fertility (IVF) assistance for childless couples. Welcome the Republican plan for America.
The ultrasound legislation would constitute an unprecedented government mandate to insert vaginal ultrasonic probes into women as part of a state-ordered effort to dissuade them from terminating pregnancies, legislative opponents noted.
"We're talking about inside a woman's body," Del. Charnielle Herring, a Democrat, said in an emotional floor speech. "This is the first time, if we pass this bill, that we will be dictating a medical procedure to a physician."
This is totally medically unnecessary invasive procedure. It serves no purpose other than to humiliate and shame women and intimidate them from choosing a legal medical procedure.
The Virginia state House of Delegates voted 63 to 36 to pass a bill requiring that women seeking abortions undergo a transvaginal ultrasound, which requires a probe being inserted into the vagina.
Delegate Charniele Herring (D-Alexandria) criticized the bill, saying “We’re talking about inside a woman’s body. This is the first time, if we pass this bill, that we will be dictating a medical procedure to a physician.” The House also voted down by a vote of 64 to 34 an amendment, which requires the women’s consent for the transvaginal ultrasound probe. This means a probe must be inserted into the woman’s vagina with or without her consent if she seeks an abortion.
Regent College Trained at Pat Robinson's Hand
The bill will now go to the state Senate. Republican Governor Bob McDonnell indicated that he will sign the bill.
Right Wingers wishing to see Republican personhood in the process need look no further than Virginia, where the GOP-controlled House just passed HB1, (Marshall-R). Being the most ignorant and backwards state seems to be the goal of republican voters in Virginia and they are well on the way to owning that title.
Part of a matched set of two astonishingly cruel legislations, (the other bill literally requires a forced vaginal invasion -- a "transvaginal ultrasound" -- into any woman considering a legal abortion) of which the personhood bill may actually be more destructive.
The transvaginal ultrasound is humiliating, painful, medically unnecessary, and imposed on a woman against her will, like rape with a foreign object --but the personhood law is forever.
Do Virginians really want to criminalize the birth control pill, stem cell research, perhaps even the In Vitro Fertility (IVF) assistance for childless couples -- as well as a woman's right to choose?
Amazingly, this anti-women's rights bill is being offered as -- a traffic safety improvement!
Listen to bill author Bob Marshall (R-Manassas): "The legal effect here is (if) a pregnant woman is driving in an intersection and someone runs into her, she can sue for loss of a child,"
Having first denied their bill would affect abortion or birth control, Republicans later revealed their true intent. Asked if the bill was intended to “lay groundwork for outlawing abortion,” the bill’s author Marshall responded with the mocking comment: “You’d have to be completely obtuse to not understand that is something I have worked toward for 20 years… ” Democrat Vivian Watts (D-Fairfax) challenged the bill, essentially saying, if the bill truly won’t affect birth control, put that in writing — add an amendment pledging nothing in the bill shall affect birth control. But Republicans immediately voted 64-34 not to add this modest amendment. Even Fox News, normally an apologist for all things Republican, did not buy the “no impact on abortion rights” nonsense, saying:”…Bob Marshall’s House Bill 1 would effectively outlaw all Virginia abortions by declaring that the rights of a person apply from the moment sperm and egg unite.” If personhood laws are put into effect, government would literally have the authority to control the reproductive life of every citizen. Were not Republicans supposed to be in favor of individual liberty? Why then would they want to remove our right to use birth control? With an estimated 99 percent of all women of reproductive years reportedly having engaged in contraception, it hardly seems possible that Republicans would try to ban something as common as air. True, Rick Santorum expressed his sentiment that sex with birth control is “not OK because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.” The other Republican Presidential hopefuls also support personhood, with the allegedly moderate Romney going so far as to say he would “absolutely” sign a personhood Constitutional Amendment. What do American voters think?
Vice Presidential Want To Be
As if stamped out of an anti-woman mold, Republican hopefuls Romney, Gingrich, Santorum and Paul all support the cruel and bizarre policy of “personhood,” the belief that full legal rights instantly accompany the joining of every sperm and egg. Voters wishing to see Republican personhood in the process need look no further than Virginia, where the GOP-controlled House just passed HB1, (Marshall-R). Part of a matched set of two astonishingly cruel legislations, (the other bill literally requires a forced vaginal invasion — a “transvaginal ultrasound” — into any woman considering a legal abortion) of which the personhood bill may actually be more destructive. The transvaginal ultrasound is humiliating, painful, medically unnecessary, and imposed on a woman against her will, like rape with a foreign object –but the personhood law is forever. Do Virginians really want to criminalize the birth control pill, stem cell research, perhaps even the In Vitro Fertility (IVF) assistance for childless couples — as well as a woman’s right to choose?
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Virginia's Past and Republican Future
In 1979, Eva F. Scott, of Amelia County, became the first woman to win election to the Senate of Virginia. By early in the 1990s there were three women among the forty members of the Senate and twelve among the one hundred members of the House of Delegates.
In 1961, Hazel K. Barger, of Roanoke, was a candidate but lost for
lieutenant governor, the first woman in Virginia nominated by a major party for statewide office. In statewide elections before Adèle Clark's death in 1983 at the age of one hundred, she saw nine women elected to the House of Delegates and two to the Senate.
Edythe C. Harrison, of Norfolk, was the Democratic Party nominee for the United States Senate in 1984. Neither Barger nor Harrison won, but in 1985 Delegate Mary Sue Terry, of Henry County, did win election as attorney general of Virginia. The first and only woman elected to statewide office, Terry won again in 1989, but failed in her bid for the governorship in 1993.
Women continued to break new ground in the political arena. In 1989 Elizabeth Bermingham Lacy became the first woman elected to the Supreme Court of Virginia. Mary Margaret Whipple, of Arlington County, became the first woman to hold a party leadership position in the Senate when she became chair of the Democratic caucus in 2000.
The number of women legislators in most states was still relatively small in 2005, but in Virginia they included eight of forty state senators and fourteen of one hundred members in the House of Delegates. In 1992, Leslie Byrne was elected to the United States Congress—the first woman elected to Congress from Virginia, seventy-two years after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.
Which brings us to present day right wing republican activity in our state. Please remember these politicians were elected by republican voters who stopped thinking circa 1950. Did you ever think there were that many backward thinking right wing nut jobs in Virginia?
Unfortunately, the past two General Assembly sessions show us one of the governor’s biggest priorities – to undercut the health of Virginia women and their families.
Bob Protects The Women of Virginia
McDonnell has banned Virginia women from using their own money to purchase private insurance coverage for abortion care even in tragic health-threatening and fetal abnormality cases.
McDonnell has approved new, unwarranted regulations to single out first-trimester abortion providers from other doctors’ office and turn them into hospitals, essentially shutting them down and banning access to safe, affordable reproductive healthcare to a majority of Virginia women.
And, McDonnell restored nearly $900,000 in funding for failed, abstinence-only-until-marriage programs in our public schools that deny real information to our youth so they can make healthy, responsible decisions.
Governor McDonnell’s policies and priorities are bad news for Virginia women and their families.
Another Republican Nut Job
The far christian right does not recognize women in leadership roles and views them in a secondary position to men. These nutjobs with the help of republican voters have taken over Virginia and republican women get the credit for surrendering their rights. If someone offers up a bill to curtail your ability to speak in public and decides to gift you with a burka, I vote for that if it only affected republicans. Why not? You sheep haven't done any favors for anyone else.
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