Government is sooooo teeensy weensy teeny tiny in the State of North Carolina that doctors performing abortions must send their required-by-law ultrasounds to the state:
Per The New York Times, doctors who perform abortions at or after the 16-week mark must send North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services “the method used to determine the ‘probable gestational age’ of the fetus, the measurements used to support the assertion and, most controversially, an ultrasound showing the measurements.” The law states that this information is being collected for “statistical purposes only,” and that patients’ and doctors’ names will remain confidential.
But Melissa Reed, the director of Planned Parenthood Votes! South Atlantic, argues that the law, which went into effect on January 1, is “medically unnecessary and purely politically driven. The true intent of the law is clear—to shame women and intimidate the doctors that care for them.”
Anti-abortion activist Tami L. Fitzgerald, who consulted on the bill with Republicans in the legislature, told the Times that the law should “act as a deterrent to the doctors themselves from lying about gestational age. The state has made a public policy decision that babies after 20 weeks have a right to live. So this law is about protecting the rights of those unborn babies.”
Why would doctors lie about gestational age? Just for kicks?
Several years ago I did a blog post where I recounted a conversation I had with my own ob/gyn about mandatory ultrasound regulations the state of Tennessee was proposing, as well as other healthcare issues currently being debated nationally. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why doctors were remaining quiet on an issue that affected their business.
[…] I asked her if she was aware that there were bills in the legislature requiring women to get an ultrasound before receiving an abortion.
“Really?!” She seemed genuinely surprised. Jesus, lady! I wanted to scream. You’re a gynecologist! This is your field! Don’t you pay attention to what legislators are doing affecting your own business?
I asked if there was any medical reason why this procedure would be necessary. “They need to do it,” she said, “to determine the age of the fetus.”
“But what if a woman is positive that it’s within the first trimester?”
“They still need to do it, to make sure.”
“To make sure?”
“To make sure she’s telling the truth.”
So, ultrasounds are needed to make sure women are telling the truth. This was my own doctor of going on 20-something years telling me this. And now, we have taken that idea to its next logical place: state government bureaucrats must review these ultrasounds becase the doctors might be lying.
Oh and also, “statistical purposes.” Right. (Statistics? Seriously? Of what?)
Where do we go from there? I have to think we’ll need some kind of federal oversight, don’t you? In case the state government bureaucrats are lying, especially if one of those ‘bortion lovin’ LIEberals gets in the governor’s office, right? Could happen! You know it could!
I mean, why not? If a universal background check is the first step towards Obama coming to confiscate everyone’s guns with his magic gun-grabbing super magnet device, how is this not the first step toward fascism?
If government has to check an ultrasound because they think a doctor might be lying about a fetus’ gestational age, and that ultrasound itself is required because the government thinks a woman might be lying about gestational age, it’s not a big leap to assume everyone is lying about everything and the government better just Big Brother-up on everything. Amiright?
Southern Beale 
Beale, this is totally OT, but I am writing all my regular blogs and begging them to pick up on thee Flint, Michigan water crisis. This is, I truly believe, a horror equivalent to 9/11 — if you can equate 3000 deaths to 7000 children — and many adults — being poisoned by lead with the resulting life long brain damage and other effects. (And they are all in one community with 40% below the poverty line, too poor to deal with providing even average services.)
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The one came from one deliberate action, the other from 20 months of Government incompetence, mismanagement, unconcern, and lying. But the horrors are equivalent.
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For the best coverage of the story, go to Rachel Maddow and the MaddowBlog — yesterday they linked to all her commentary on it when she was the only one outside of Michigan. For a single, long, technical, but very readable description, go to Science blogs and the wonderful ‘Orac’..
Rachel Maddow has done a wonderful job covering the Flint, MI water crisis. Truly awful what Snyder did. Poisoned kids to save some money. And he was supposed to be a big GOP hopeful for 2016 too. Any political future he ever had is completely dead in the, er, poisoned water.