Back to the Basics of Choice
GlobalShift Guest | Feb 26, 2010 | Comments 7
There has been quite an outcry among the pro-choice community of late against a recent bill passed by the Utah legislature. The bill gives women a choice to see the fetus before choosing to get an abortion. Apparently, the “Pro-Choice” community is becoming less about choice and educated decisions, and more about defending abortion at all costs. The reaction to this bill by some voices within the pro-choice movement, such as Planned Parenthood, is a prime example of the movement’s tendency to discourage real choices. The bill is not forcing women to see the fetus, only giving them the choice they should have had all along and that Planned Parenthood has denied.
The bill, HB 200, changes the current informed consent and states that abortion centers must allow women a chance to see an ultrasound before the abortion is done and requires abortion facilities to provide a detailed description of the unborn child to the mother considering abortion. Sponsored by Republican state Rep. Carl Wimmer, the legislation furthermore, “requires the state Department of Health to produce both printed and video information about the ultrasound viewing that abortion businesses must give women 24 hours in advance of the abortion informing them of their rights to view one.”
Rather than giving women complete control of information, and access to all things pertaining to the woman’s body and fetus, it seems Planned Parenthood would rather blindly lead women into an uneducated decision.
Currently, any surgery, medical procedure or medicine given in the medical community at large comes complete with a laundry list of warnings and explanations. Even when a doctor performs an elective surgery, the doctor must give patients a detailed explanation of any x-rays, pre-op photos, and possible risks, no matter how small the risks may be. Doctors also inform patients of any potential alternatives. Given these current and widely accepted standards, it is incredible that a bill similar to HB 200 in Utah has not been made a federal law.
Three Options for Unwanted Pregnancies
Currently, women have three options when it comes to unwanted pregnancies. Option one is, of course, motherhood. In the eyes of a Planned Parenthood supporter, this is a bad idea if a woman is not financially stable or educated. Planned Parenthood backs up this argument by pointing to statistics that show such parenting conditions lead to more crime and poverty. However, there is plenty of information as well as organizations willing to help financially unstable women, such as Women, Infants and Children (WIC), local churches, synagogues, and free parenting classes.
The second option is adoption. Adoption is the least selected alternative and is sadly seen as incomprehensible despite the endless resources. According to the National Council for Adoption, there are more than one million couples waiting to adopt. When a woman considers adoption, a responsible adoption agency will completely review the risks and rewards of the woman’s possible decision.
Then there is the coveted third option, abortion. However, unlike adoption agencies, information is limited once a woman steps through the doors of Planned Parenthood. It would benefit the Pro-Choice community to encourage education, choices, and decisions when it comes to abortion. These additional choices include allowing a woman to see what is growing in her own womb. Unfortunately, there have been several proven claims that Planned Parenthood doctors minimize risks and rarely explain the abortion procedures unless directly asked by the woman.
The Need to Protect a Woman’s Access to Informed Decisions
From my experience working in two pregnancy options counseling clinics in two different states, I spoke with countless women who had previously had an abortion at Planned Parenthood or had visited a Planned Parenthood clinic because they were considering an abortion. Rarely had they received sufficient information regarding risks and options. Our clinic would always inform the woman on the three options if interested. If she asked, we would provide her with information and resources on parenting. The pregnancy options clinic would also review the benefits and concerns involved with adoption if she was considering that avenue. Additionally, if the woman was considering abortion, the clinic counselor would inform her of the different procedure and risks in strict medical terminology. Unfortunately, many women were surprised they had never heard this at Planned Parenthood. Oversights such as these render HB 200 necessary, rather than outlandish.
My account is not the first record of this lack of information being presented at Planned Parenthood clinics. Recently, an undercover crew went to Planned Parenthood to see what kind of information a woman interested in abortion would receive in a counseling session. A copy of a letter submitted to the Wisconsin newspaper, The Journal Sentinel, by Lila Rose of Live Action reveals disturbing findings of a woman seeking counseling described in part in the following excerpt:
“Does it have a heart beat?” the young woman asked. “Heart tones,” the Planned Parenthood counselor interrupted. “Heart beat is when the fetus is active in uterus, can survive, which is about 17 or 18 weeks.”
This is simply false. The prominent embryology textbook, “Human Embryology” by Moore and Persaud, states, “The heart begins to beat at 22 to 23 days.”
Later, Planned Parenthood abortionist Dr. Gary Prohaska told our investigator, “you don’t want to wait” to get an abortion, warning, “You know, women die having babies.”
Providing medical misinformation and manipulating women in such a grave and irreversible decision as abortion is unconscionable. Institutionally standing behind medical falsehoods shows the public that the problems come from the highest levels of Planned Parenthood. Women deserve to know the truth.”
It is also interesting to note that a key argument the Planned Parenthood organization has used when debating the moral issue surrounding abortion is; “If you don’t want one, don’t choose to get one.” It seems that the same argument they champion could be said of the new bill. If you don’t want to see the fetus, don’t choose to see it. The organization should not encourage a choice that ends in a lack of information and more importantly, choices. It also begs the question as to Planned Parenthood’s motive for taking a stand against this new law. It doesn’t seem too far-fetched to infer it may have something to do with the loss of profit that may come with this bill. After all, Lifenews.com states that, “when used in pregnancy centers, ultrasounds are credited with helping more than 80 percent of women to reconsider a decision to have an abortion.” Is it possible to think that a company that earned an income of just over $1 Billion a year (according to their 2007-2008 Annual Report) has a fear that the natural tendency towards curiosity could cause significant detriment to their profits?
Facilitating True Empowerment
The fact that the Planned Parenthood community, which would describe itself as an organization looking to empower women, has a problem with a law that gives women the right to more information and more choices is inconsistent, hypocritical and insincere.
I would like to see the Pro-Choice movement lean towards giving women all information pertaining to the liberty that is legally theirs. I take issue not with women who are free to make their own decisions, but with institutions that push agendas on women without providing necessary tools for informed decisions.
As a nation we need to ensure that women have every opportunity to make educated judgments. Without question, the legally protected option to see an ultrasound of a fetus and increase her awareness of her own body should be granted. True empowerment for women comes not from discouraging the accessibility of information or hiding facts altogether, but from encouraging women to seek out all information that leads to an informed decision. An uninformed choice is no choice at all.
Author: Rachel Raynes
Filed Under: The Soap Box
About the Author:
It’s difficult to know precisely where to begin with this article. You start out under the pretense of defending the right for women to be “informed,” but it quickly morphs into an attack on the abortion movement as a whole, particularly a tirade against Planned Parenthood.
First, a clarification is in order. Most clinics already give women the choice to view their ultrasounds prior to the actual abortion. In some states, it’s actually required (an incredibly bullying tactic that this heartbeat debacle hopes to dovetail from) before a woman can go through with the procedure. So, in effect, women already have such options available to them.
What many Feminists and pro-choicers, myself included, are criticizing with the bill is the inaccurate medical language. It simply isn’t a matter for debate–the Mayo Clinic states that a heart doesn’t even begin to form until Week 5–well beyond the “22 to 23 days” quoted above, but pro-life advocates like to make it seem as though there is some breathing room, or that it’s a “gray area.” No, it isn’t. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/prenatal-care/PR00112 Additionally, I myself am pregnant, and when I asked my doctor to listen for the heartbeat at my last check-up, she gave me a funny look and told me she had never heard a heartbeat before the ninth week, nor had any others in her clinic or area.
It isn’t about a desire to keep women from making fully-informed choices; it’s about recognizing that the medical reasoning simply isn’t there, and identifying the true rhetoric underpinning the bill-making. The hope by lawmakers is to reduce the number of abortions that are ultimately performed in the status quo by essentially trying to get women to view themselves as murderers. Whether one is pro-life or pro-choice, abortion is a legally-protected right, courtesy of “Roe v. Wade.”
Which means that anyone in favor of such bullying tactics is essentially supporting the circumvension of not only reproductive choice, but individual freedoms. Regardless of where one falls on the abortion spectrum, I have a difficult time understanding why someone would be okay with individual lawmakers trying to undermine anyone’s protected rights.
The problem with the ultrasound bill that is being proposed is that in many states it would be mandatory for women to view the heartbeat which many people (including myself) consider to be emotional blackmail.
Here’s a link: http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2009/feb/08/news/chi-ap-ne-xgr-abortion-ultr
You say Planned Parenthood is putting their agenda onto their patients but Live Action (who you linked to) definitely has their own agenda which is a very conservative, Christian one. The claim that Planned Parenthood doesn’t inform their patients seems insane to me. If you have ever used their services you would know that in addition to providing birth control, pap smears and yes, abortions, that a main part of their “agenda” is educating women about their choices and their bodies. You can portray the ultrasound bill as choice all you want, but it is just one more attempt from the Christian right to chip away at abortion laws for everyone which includes non-Christians. Separation of church and state 4eva!
Ugh — can we dispense with the insinuation that Planned Parenthood is somehow out to protect its profits? They are a non-profit organization, and as such, really wouldn’t have a huge interest in protecting “profits” that they’d otherwise have to get rid of through other means. That information is in the exact same pamphlet that you link to when making that argument.
Moving on, I agree that uninformed choices are a bad thing. However, uninformed articles are equally bad, on which subject I get the impression that you haven’t read the text of the proposed law. Because if you had, you’d realize that this bill wasn’t quite as innocuous as your analysis would have us believe.
The current version of the bill can be found at http://le.utah.gov/~2010/bills/hbillamd/hb0200.htm (I know, I fail at HTML), and it has a couple of disturbing features:
1) Concerning the proposed revisions to Utah Code section 76-7-305(3)(b)(ii) — it would appear that under current law, a physician is required to provide all sorts of legally-mandated information (pamphlets, video, etc.) at least 24 hours before an abortion is performed. Current law also makes certain exceptions to this rule, one of which is when an abortion is performed in an emergency fashion to prevent harm to the mother. That protection would be stricken from existing law, making physicians rely on other sections of Utah’s criminal code that — naturally — provide less protection than the (now) stricken language of this statute. Essentially, the “protection” threshold went from physicians doing procedures in the context of a “medical emergency” (current law) to physicians doing abortions to (a) save a woman’s life, or (b) prevent “serious” AND “irreversible” damage to bodily function or structures. Those exceptions are covered under Utah Code section 76-7-302(3)(i)(A-B), and it is pretty clear from my end that the new law would provide LESS protection for doctors who fail to provide state-sponsored pamphlets, videos, etc., to women before an abortion, ESPECIALLY in circumstances where the procedure is done to prevent merely serious (as opposed to serious AND irreversible) damage to a woman’s body. And I think the only rational basis for providing less protection for physicians in the arena of abortion is to ensure that there are fewer doctors willing to perform that procedure. Which leads to fewer options for women seeking abortions. And that is exactly the opposite result of your thesis.
2) Going onto subsection (6)(a-b) of the same law, the language would seem to mandate that the ultrasound images be shown to the woman — the text of 6(b) provides that a provider “shall” simultaneously display ultrasound images, so that the woman “may” choose to view them, or not to view them. The previous section, subsection (a), provides that a facility shall inform the woman that ultrasound images will be displayed in a fashion that allows her to choose whether the images shall be displayed. At the very least, the sections are contradictory, and on that basis alone, the law shouldn’t be passed in such a confusing form. More likely, the drafters of the law are hoping that a Utah court will determine that subsection (b) controls, which means that pregnant women WILL, if only for an instant, be virtually required to look at those images. If that is the case, then the law is doing the EXACT opposite of what you say it does.
Make no mistake: this is complex stuff, and reading laws that are still being amended, etc., can be exceedingly difficult. That said, this law does nothing to “empower” women, and in all likelihood, it will actually reduce their access to abortion, since doctors will be less willing to perform emergency abortions in circumstances where a woman is in serious, but not life-threatening, trouble. Additionally, the law is muddled, as there is no EXPLICIT recognition of a woman’s right to choose whether to see the ultrasound images; instead, the law is vague enough to allow providers to show the woman the images before that choice has been made. Lord knows how traumatic that would be!
If the rights of women seeking an abortion are to be protected, a sober analysis of what’s on the table now leads unerringly to one conclusion: this law must be opposed. Period.
Barrick
I’m not sure how facing the reality of a situation could be considered emotional blackmail or a bullying tactic. Would it be considered blackmail to have a woman told she has osteoporosis to read her own bone density report before choosing a medication/treatment option? Would it be considered a bullying tactic to have a patient told he has cancer to view the various PET scans or MRIs, before he’s able to choose a treatment course? Somehow only when it comes to an unborn child does this argument get brought up. This bill is not even forcing women to view this information if they don’t want to. But it’s demanding some accountability that patients are getting all the information they need to make an informed decision. Real empowerment comes from knowing what you’re up against, and knowing the reality of the situation, including staring it in the face- and THEN being able to make a decision.
The problem is, Elizabeth, you don’t have individuals decrying someone the right to choose how they go about treating their osteoporosis or cancer. Trying to compare a bone density scan or an MRI result with viewing an ultrasound before having an abortion is a strawman at best. No woman walks into a clinic, unaware that opting for abortion means the end of a life–though whether that life is irrevocably human or merely a cluster of cells is the bone of contention between the sides of pro-life and pro-choice. Your analogy would be more akin to, say, a pregnancy test, rather than an abortion.
It never ceases to amaze me that people want to talk about how this type of law is empowering, when it completely subsumes the idea that women need a required hand-holding to make an informed decision. How truly patriarchal–a law proposed by a male politician to ensure we women are completely in touch with our bodies and what goes on inside them! How can so many ignore the sexist underpinnings of this kind of rhetoric?
Not to mention, as Barrick Arnold pointed out above, this law is not about offering women “the choice.” Basically, the law has two problems. One, it’s written in a way that lowers protections for physicians who, in emergency situations, must abort the embryo/fetus without the provisions of first offering the viewing option to the pregnant woman. Second, the law itself is written in such a way that it guarantees, through amendments and regressive restrictions, women will ultimately be forced to look at the ultrasound regardless of the circumstances.
As long as we’re going to be discussing accountability, let’s talk about this article and it’s supporting commentary. It would be great if, instead of offering blanket support for what people think a law says (or buying the input from pundits who can’t be bothered to do more than pick up on soundbytes from agenda-driven politicians), they’d read the full text of such laws and their proposed amendments.
I actually did read through the whole text of the law, and didn’t think it seemed sexist in the least. It’s not about men or women- it’s about humanity and life. If it were men that were having the babies, which wouldn’t that be nice for a change
, I would expect them to not be ignorant about their bodies or the lives inside them either. I also didn’t recall the amendment ever saying it would force women to look at the ultrasound either, in fact to me it was quite the opposite- and very liberal in allowing women all the options but still the choice to look away…but maybe it’s either about differences in interpretation or maybe we were reading different amendments.
Elizabeth, I’m not sure how you can assert that this proposed law isn’t about “men or women.” Men, as you so astutely pointed out, do not have babies, receive sonograms, make the choice to give birth or have an abortion. This law is most certainly about women, and their continued domination by a sexist government.
This is why someone could think viewing an ultrasound is akin to reading the result of an MRI. It’s playing on the hope of ultimately forcing women not to opt for abortions by extorting an emotional response to a picture of the cells inside of them. As I said above, most women who have decided on abortion are already fully informed of what that decision, at the bare bones level, entails. Generally speaking, it’s almost always individuals who have never been in such a situation who presume that others who have didn’t receive all of the relevant information, and it’s interestingly enough, legislation that’s almost always spearheaded by men.
Also, given the lengthy analysis above, I don’t think it’s a matter of “differing” interpretation at all–especially given that there are 11 states in the status quo that are, to varying extents, requiring women to view the ultrasounds. This proposed legislation mirrors that vein.