Remember the probes.
Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell -- and Republican vice presidential hopeful -- is giving up on requiring medically unnecessary transvaginal ultrasounds in a bill he previously said he would support. He released this statement moments ago:
Mandating an invasive procedure in order to give informed consent is not a proper role for the state. No person should be directed to undergo an invasive procedure by the state, without their consent, as a precondition to another medical procedure.
For this reason, I have recommended to the General Assembly a series of amendments to this bill. I am requesting that the General Assembly amend this bill to explicitly state that no woman in Virginia will have to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound involuntarily. I am asking the General Assembly to state in this legislation that only a transabdominal, or external, ultrasound will be required to satisfy the requirements to determine gestational age. Should a doctor determine that another form of ultrasound may be necessary to provide the necessary images and information that will be an issue for the doctor and the patient. The government will have no role in that medical decision.
After more than a thousand people staged a silent protest at the state capitol, the Virginia House of Delegates twice put off voting on the bill this week. Last night the Washington Post reported that Governor McDonnell wasn't so committed to the measure anymore, or at least to the probes.
Make no mistake: the governor still says Virginia's government should have the right to examine a woman's body. You can see that in his full statement, after the jump.
Statement of Governor Bob McDonnell on SB 484
RICHMOND – Governor Bob McDonnell issued the following statement today regarding SB 484, a bill before the General Assembly that would require an ultrasound prior to an abortion being performed.
"I am pro-life. I believe deeply in the sanctity of innocent human life and believe governments have a duty to protect human life. The more our society embraces a culture of life for all people, the better country we will have. Over the course of my 20-year career in elected office, I have been glad to play a leading role in putting in place common-sense policies that protect and defend innocent human life in the Commonwealth. One of those bills was Virginia's informed consent statute, of which I was the chief patron in the House of Delegates, finally seeing its passage in 2001. This session, the General Assembly is now considering amending this informed consent statute to include a requirement that any woman seeking an abortion receive an ultrasound in order to establish the gestational age for appropriate medical purposes, and to offer a woman the opportunity to voluntarily review that ultrasound prior to giving her legal informed consent to abortion.
Over the past days I have discussed the specific language of the proposed legislation with other governors, physicians, attorneys, legislators, advocacy groups, and citizens. It is apparent that several amendments to the proposed legislation are needed to address various medical and legal issues which have arisen. It is clear that in the majority of cases, a routine external, transabdominal ultrasound is sufficient to meet the bills stated purpose, that is, to determine gestational age. I have come to understand that the medical practice and standard of care currently guide physicians to use other procedures to find the gestational age of the child, when abdominal ultrasounds cannot do so. Determining gestational age is essential for legal reasons, to know the trimester of the pregnancy in order to comply with the law, and for medical reasons as well.
Thus, having looked at the current proposal, I believe there is no need to direct by statute that further invasive ultrasound procedures be done. Mandating an invasive procedure in order to give informed consent is not a proper role for the state. No person should be directed to undergo an invasive procedure by the state, without their consent, as a precondition to another medical procedure.
For this reason, I have recommended to the General Assembly a series of amendments to this bill. I am requesting that the General Assembly amend this bill to explicitly state that no woman in Virginia will have to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound involuntarily. I am asking the General Assembly to state in this legislation that only a transabdominal, or external, ultrasound will be required to satisfy the requirements to determine gestational age. Should a doctor determine that another form of ultrasound may be necessary to provide the necessary images and information that will be an issue for the doctor and the patient. The government will have no role in that medical decision.
I have requested other amendments that help clarify the purposes of the bill and reflect a better understanding of prevailing medical practices. It is my hope that the members of the General Assembly will act favorably upon these recommendations from our office. We will await their action prior to making any further comments on this matter.”
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Still to much gov in the doctors office, dont they understand that?
Apparently they don't and never will.
He is hoping that a regular "on top" ultrasound will sound so much less invasive that no one will protest it.
How do you go from pounding your fist and demanding transvaginal procedures to pretending you are concerned about Women?....what a Crock!!!
My guess is that Obama had the FBI and the AG ready to pounce.
Can anyone think of an equivalent male (or gender neutral) medical procedure with this level of government micro-managing outside of organ donations?
In 2010 the GOP was sh!tting bricks about socialistic government-controlled health care and death panels... Yep, keep government's hands off my healthcare and put 'em all up in my womb. Bonkers!!!
No they don't. Even when McDonnell changed the bill the Republicans still wanted to vote NO. They wanted vaginal penetration or nothing. Honest to God.
Logic is futile.
Prepare to be assimilated by the Republborg on a mission from god to outlaw women, science, Muslims, clean air, global warming, Mexicans, and facts.
"I can see the White House from here"
Yes he could but it was rapidly receeding into the distance.
Perhaps the statement should read
"Help, let me out of here!"
I guess being called a rapist didn't agree with him.
if there were more time to design some spin per Mr. Luntz, there would have pressed forward....We haven't seen the last of this.....
I don't think it was the "rapist" label - more like the V.P. list that he could have been crossed out of....Self interest is a motivator.....
Don't for a second believe that this was for women....he's looking at the backlash and calculating how it will effect is VP aspirations.
EXACTLY! Especially when he discovered that Republican women and even anti-choice women were finding it outrageous that the state would mandate an internal probe. He must have watched Rachel Maddow's fabulous segment last night that nailed McDonnell to the wall.
Yep. If he doesn't get the nod for VP, he will likely revisit this issue. He lied to get the governorship and there is no reason to believe his new statement.
Next, they will try to retract our right to vote. They advocate small government yet forcing instruments into a woman's womb and denying contraception. For me, this qualifies as an authoritarian form of government with one party in complete control.
Don't for a second believe that this was for women....he's looking at the backlash and calculating how it will effect is VP aspirations.
Sad part for Mac...and for most of the GOP that tends to get behind this nonsense...and for the Rickster from PA...Women vote...and they do NOT forget!
So, Governor McDonald has decided that he actually wants a political future, that, darn it, depends upon the support of women, who, darn it, have gained the right to vote.
Well at least until after the November election. Then it's back to his regents loonaversity role.
Keep up the silent protest till he backs down entirely on any requirement for 'informed consent'. The woman has already worked that out on her own.
it's still invasive and it's still medically unnecessary, and it's still revolting.
and also, who foots the extra cost of the ultrasounds? if it's unnecessary, does insurance still cover it? does the law cover it? or does it become another barrier to the decision the woman has already made?
No....Women would have to pay out of pocket to be raped....insult to injury!!!
Wonder if your friend Laura Ingraham told him about your scathingly accurate reports, especially last night's? Well done, Rachel.
The terms simplify.
Are you pro-Medical Privacy or anti-Medical Privacy?
Choose one.
Doctors are very, very good at determining the age of a fetus without an ultrasound, sonogram or any other device. This is abuse, this is wrong, and this jack ass needs to keep his personal opinions to himself!
I don't think this was about determining gestational age. This was about making women see the adorable little thing they're murdering. Except (as I tried to express below) there's really nothing to see early in a pregnancy.
it was about physically punishing women for choosing to make a 'bad' choice.
It was about making a woman pay for a state mandated procedure that insurance and medicaid generally does not cover. It was also financial punishment.
It's about intimidation, pure and simple. There is no medical purpose, no plausible medical excuse. It's not even about looking at a fetus, it's about telling women that they will be subject to state sponsored rape with an object if they insist on exercising their legal right to reproductive choice - even if the pregnancy occurred as a result of rape or incest to begin with. It's about the threat of literally thrusting an ideology into women in order to frighten them into submission - to frighten them into being controlled by men, by the church, by the state. We need to see it for precisely what it is and see these people for the threat that they truly represent. They are trying to legalize state sanctioned rape, and once they pass it for women who are considering terminating a pregnancy, they will use it for other things too. Remember the same crowd is going after contraception! Their intent is to subjugate women into second class citizenship, baby makers who must submit to control by males.
Let's give them hell girls! This pisses me off no end! Backing away from something that is wrong to something that is wrong is not backing away!
Absolutely we need to give 'em hell! I am so outraged at what's going on. What happened to Government getting out of your life? I guess getting into your womb is different.
Okay women, I guess you can go back to believing whatever else the Republicans want to tell you! What a cretin McDonnell is. That he has backed away does not take away from the fact that he has previously said he would sign the bill. Please, please, please pick this yokel for Vice President!!!
I see the Republicans are in full retreat on several fronts in regards to Women's issues. I think, it is to late and the cat is out of the bag. Wake up women, your lives are on the line with these people. I hope the elections will clean out all these radical Republicans and restore some sanity and respect for Women.
I give a lot of credit to this retreat well somewhat of a retreat by Governor Bob McDonnell to Rachel and the entire staff of TRMS Nice Going Guys.
I'm suspicious of the "Should a doctor determine that another form of ultrasound may be necessary to provide the necessary images..." language. If a transvaginal ultrasound is the only way to get the "necessary images," then what choice are doctor and patient going to have, despite the apparent walk-back from the governor?
Me too. The original text of the Senate version of this bill was about the physician being required to offer to do an ultrasound but the woman wasn't required to get one. Even there, though, the language surrounding the "gestational age" determination as part of informed consent seemed nebulous enough that a court might view that as requiring things like vaginal ultrasound so that the doctor couldn't be sued at some future date because she didn't do her best to get the most accurate gestational age. This whole thing is just a form of "Government as Parent' in the extreme. We're so sure you can't possibly have made the right decision that we're going to make carrying through with that decision as hard as we can, because we're smarter than you and we're sure if you only had more information you'd think just like we do. Ugh.
Initially, upon reading the headline, I thought "YES!" but after reading Gov. McDonnell's statement it seems obvious to me that unless doctors can determine the gestational age of a fetus via abdominal ultrasound, which they cannot until around 12 weeks into a pregnancy, and proof of fetal age is necessary before an abortion can be performed, then the doctor is at odds with the state, even though Gov. McDonnell finishes by stating the government will have no role in the medical decision. What exactly is behind this wording?
Clare,
Very good catch on the wording. This guy is not done. He is just getting started. Read his Thesis and know him.
Excellent. This is why I read thru posts before I open my yap. Someone may have already said what I want to say.
This ain't over yet, people!
While it's GOOD they've decided not to mandate rape -- am I correct in thinking this amendment is nonsensical, because prior to 8-ish weeks (if that, even) you won't be able to SEE anything via an abdominal ultrasound?
The message then becomes, "Hey, we want you to see the cute little thing you're murdering. See that grey blur that looks like your old-fashioned TV on the fritz? Nevermind..."
In fact, from some of what I've seen, even an intravaginal ultrasound shows only things like the yolk sac at 6 weeks. Um, if I knew I were pregnant and didn't want to be, I'd be swallowing Mifeprex a day after my period was due, and pregnancy tests are pretty darned sensitive now.
If only we had legislators and governors who didn't want to play doctor all the time.
But if the fetus is too small to see, then doesn't that mean that the prgnancy is in its early stage, the stage approved for abortion? Ergo, then no need for further gestational age testing of the embryo/fetus?
Doesn't matter if it's too small to see. These are the "Personhood" folks. If the zygote is tumbling along merrily through the Fallopian tube, it's already a "person" in their eyes.
Doesn't matter if it's too small to see. These are the "Personhood" folks. If the zygote is tumbling along merrily through the Fallopian tube, it's already a "person" in their eyes.
Don't kid yourself into believing that this is about abortion. This is the creepiest of the right wing creepoids butting into your bedroom...again. This isn't the first, nor will it be the last invasion of personal privacy by the cRyghtwingnuts.
Chris0U812
I need to remind you that the people responsible for this legislation are doing what the voices tell them to do. And they think it's god.
Logic is futile.
Maybe Gov. McDonnell finally got it about why his proposal is so medieval after watching The Daily Show last night. Jon Stewart told Virginia Republicans, in terms they could understand, that what the bill required was "like a TSA patdown, but inside your vagina."
I pray that the GOP keeps pushing these issues and energizing the female majority, all the way to November.
Do you not understand that this is between a woman and her doctor. Period. No aspect of a woman's health care is any of your (or the GOP's) business. Women still have the vote, and I don't care how much you walk this back, your are unelectable. GOP candidates have proved that they will do anything, say anything to get elected and then try to do anything they want. Not any more will you so easily get away with this kind of bs. Crawl back under the rock you came out from under.
Well, I honestly can't blame him for wanting to "examine" them. Women's bodies are truly fascinating works of art, and the urge to do so can be overwhelming sometimes. To not request and be granted permission first, though, constitutes something else entirely. It's not that difficult to see the difference. Why is it that so many republican men try to act like they don't understand that?
I think the Governor objects because this is the sort of thing that should be decided by the Agricultural Committee.
Maybe someone mixed up the spellings of "cattle" and "chattel."
This is the BofA approach to marketing. Declare you're going to do something and see how much of a backlash you get. If it's too much, back off and say you never meant to do it in the first place.
These sick, twisted, demented hideous bastards! This is all about ideology, about intimidation, and nothing whatsoever about medicine! These people get their morality straight out of the Spanish Inquisition. In their repulsive minds, their ends of global dominion, and absolute control over women and their reproductive capabilities justify any perverted means necessary for them to achieve them. The same people who scream about making government smaller obviously know exactly where they want to stick it once they get it down to size. Fascist scum - we need to recognize these people for the threat that they are to our freedom, our liberty, our democracy and our self-determination before they manage to subjugate all of us to their sick notions of dominion and "stewardship." We have a very frightening enemy among us, and they are a far bigger threat than any external enemy.
When you say "sick, twisted, demented hideous bastards", are you talking about those people who support killing humans in the womb?
No, Brent. "Sick, twisted, demented hideous bastards" who think that they have a right to control women's bodies because they have names like "Brent" and not "Betty."
Brent (me) cares about all humans, even the unborn.
Why is it a double murder if a pregnant woman gets murdered, but not murder when mom kills the unborn?
You don't want this issue going to the Supreme Court. Pulic opinion isn't tracking in your favor either. People are realizing that abortion is cruel and brutal.
Hillary wanted it to be safe, legal and rare. Why do you think she added "rare"?
Brent the only way we know of to reduce the amount of those being killed is by having abortion being legal and access to contraception being legal. There is no country in the world where abortion is illegal where the comparative rate is lower than that of the US. The death rate goes down when you give women access to contraception and allow them to access abortions safely and legally. If you truly care about protecting life then you won't try to inhibit women from accessing clinics to get that treatment. All you will end up accomplishing going that route is increasing the number of people who die. Educating women and men about safe sex and making contraceptives easily accessible is the only way to get the death rate to go down.
All you accomplish by illegalizing abortion is either a. prosecuting the mother or driving her behavior underground OR b. prosecuting the doctor or driving his/her behavior underground. Neither of those options are what we want if our actual goal is to reduce the rate.
All of this sanctimonious crap about the "unborn" has really reached an intolerable saturation level. We've had all we can take of this simplistic worldview from people who feel justified in sticking their noses into situations where they are completely clueless as to what is going on in the life of a woman attempting to exercise her legal right to her own reproductive choice. You and your ilk have become so blinded by your increasingly radicalized ideology that you have lost your ability to tell an acorn from a tree, a chicken from an egg, a zygote from a cooing infant. Something that has not yet developed a brain stem is not cognizant, is not sentient - there is a profound difference between a fertilized egg and a human being! Yet it is not enough that you tyrannize traumatized mothers seeking to make a decision with their doctors about whether or not to have a medically advisable abortion late in pregnancy - the only reason in which a late term abortion is EVER performed. It is not enough that you tyrannize women who need to make an anguished decision about whether or not to carry out a pregnancy that they are in no position for any number of reasons, from rape to incest to domestic violence, where you feel justified in meddling. No, you even feel compelled to prohibit women from obtaining emergency contraception to keep fertilization from occurring, AND NOW YOU AND YOUR KIND ARE COMING AFTER CONTRACEPTION. Your objectives are clear, that you seek nothing less than complete domination of women and our reproductive systems. Your simple-minded sanctimonious meddling in painful personal issues that should be between a woman and her doctor alone has gone way past the point of being tolerable, you scream about shrinking government yet wholeheartedly advocate the most pernicious invasion of privacy imaginable in service of your twisted ideologies, and we've reached the boiling point with it. You will either back off or be backed off - women are not going back to the middle ages to satisfy the dominionist ambitions of a segment of the population that feels justified in attempting to control the bodies of their fellow citizens.
So... tell us how your really feel Kimber! You've said it very well. What is SOOO laughable about this idea of banning birth control is -- what are these guys going to do if they get their way? If women cannot get contraception, they are going to be saying, "Not tonight" a WHOLE lot more often.
When you say "sick, twisted, demented hideous bastards", are you talking about those people who support killing humans in the womb?
No, dip stick...it doesn't take much to understand that she means anyone presumptive enough to think that what she chooses to do medically is ANYONEs business other than her own.
- I wholeheartedly support Kimber Lee's absolutely correct and righteous response to this issue. And to "Brent" I add that the whole "Double Murder" in the cases of an assault/death of a pregnant woman was vehemently opposed by everyone who knew it was being shoved through as a pre-cursor to these ridiculous "personhood/anti-contraception" laws that are now being enacted by Republican controlled state legislatures across the country. I would also fervently echo her sentiments: A zygote has no body, no brain, no sentience, Brent - there is NOTHING there to call it a "person" or a "human being". To attempt to do so, has you and the others who tout these same misogynistic notions - masquerading as religious dogma - coming across as utterly non-sensical and unbelievably irrational to any truly intelligent and _real— human beings. Corporations are not people and neither are Zygotes. Simply saying they are, will not make it so. I agree with Bertrand Russell: "..fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves while wise people so full of doubts."
- Governor Bob McDonald was so fanatically sure he could justify the serial rape of all women seeking an abortion, that is until he ran head on into the reality that they would have to completely change the Virginia's law pertaining to rape - which would have completely outed their law for what it was - RAPE.
- The only thing I would add to Kimber Lee's passionate defense is something which so many seem to either forget or ignore in this entire debate. That is IF the Republicans and the aptly nick-named, "Christian Taliban" got everything they wanted - from a ban on all abortions (whether or not the pregnancy was forcibly imposed on the woman or _girl— by means of rape and/or incest), plus a ban on virtually all contraceptives, the results would be catastrophic for this plane of 7 billion people. We can already see it happening in countries where women are completely subjugated by men - just like both Governor McDonald's AND Sanctimonious Santorum's ideal universe - where women have NO access to any kind of birth control, let alone first-trimester abortions.
- See the story below about the tens of thousands of babies and children STARVING TO DEATH in areas dominated by the Islamic Taliban and other extreme male-dominated cultures. In Afganistan alone, 30,000 babies and small children die every year from starvation and as a direct result of their mothers being malnourished while they were pregnant - leaving their offspring horribly deformed. So BRENT, what happens to your "care for all humans once the child of an _unwanted— pregnancy is actually born? I dare you to watch this report. Where's your care and concern for _those— very real human beings?
Afghanistan’s starving children
video.msnbc.msn.com
Video on msnbc.com: WARNING: This video contains disturbing images. Afghanistan’s hospitals bear the evidence of the country’s malnutrition crisis. This crisis that is now at emergency levels, killing 30,000 children every year. Drought and poverty are at its root. According to Save the Children...
OK, look.
An embryo is not a fetus, but it will be one day. An embryo doesn't have a head or a heart, no emotions, no sensations.
But I think there's a hidden message for those who say it is a human life. I think they believe it has a soul, that at the moment of conception G-d comes around and blows a soul into this microscopic embryo. This keeps G-d very busy, kinda like Santa on Xmas eve. Need I mention that this is a belief that not all share, or HAVEN'T WE COVERED THIS GROUND ENOUGH YET??!!!
An embryo is not a fetus, but it will be one day. So should we call an embryo an unfetus?
A fetus is not a child, but it will be one day. It's not a child; it can't breathe, it can't see. For most of its time in the womb, without its mother it can't live. Some have decided that unchild sounds stupid, so they call it unborn. Let's be clear: if you're unborn, you're not born. You're not an unborn child, YOU'RE A FETUS.
I'm not a corpse, but I will be one day. Until then, am I undead? An awful lot of us zombies are running around.
Something isn't something until it is that thing. Something isn't something before it's something.
Repub Saint Ayn Rand was pro-choice. She said that valuing a potential life over an actual life is immoral. Look it up
If you want to believe differently, go ahead. As third-graders say, it's a free country. But let's keep it that way and leave me and my wife, sisters and daughters alone.
The problem with people like this Brent guy (just has to be) or Santorum or McDonnell, is that they have very simple moralistic (note that I didn't write 'moral') codes. When these simple visions of how things should be are imposed on the very complex real world, the results are always brutal and frequently evil. There is no greater force for evil than the man who is utterly convinced of his own righteousness.
Belly only is OK? Only if a doctor and patient think so. Is there one physician among this band of Talibangelists? Belly only is NOT OK and these rogues need to be sent packing, either back home or to medical school. I don't care how "pro-life" this asshat is. He has no right to foist his beliefs on anyone who differs with him, And we'll see how pro-life he is with the next death warrant that crosses his desk. The day a bum like this is the VP I'm out of here.
1.) A blood test can determine gestational age by measuring bHCG level.
2.) In early pregnancy a transvaginal ultrasound is the only way to accurately determine gestational age. Abdominal ultrasounds are useful to determine intrauterine preganacy.
Calling this a walk back seems like a joke if those two contentions are true.
The fact that it isn't necessary to determine the age of the fetus is an even more obnoxious aspect of this debate that isn't even being contested by the left. Sigh.
Besides which, unless the fetus is trying to buy a beer, there's no reason to card it. In all other cases, the judgement of the doctor and the choice of the woman should be all that matters.