Turn Your Head and Cough, Please

On June 15, the 4^th Circuit court of appeals struck down North Carolina’s controversial A Woman’s Right to Know Act.  The law required doctors and ultrasound technicians to perform an ultrasound on pregnant women seeking abortion services to display and describe the image of the fetus to the patient during the procedure even if she actively “averts her eyes” and “refuses to hear.”  The law’s intent, ironically, is to provide “informed consent” and was consensual for neither the patient nor the attending medical care provider.  Even the conservative North Carolina appeals panel recognized the unconstitutionality of the law.

The unanimous decision which upheld a lower court decision was authored by Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III.  Not only did he agree that the provision violated a doctor’s First Amendment Right to free speech, he also acknowledged the cruel and humiliating situation for the female patient.  His ruling says in part:

“Informed consent frequently consists of a fully-clothed conversation between the patient and physician, often in the physician’s office… This provision, however, finds the patient half-naked or disrobed on her back on an examination table, with an ultrasound probe either on her belly or inserted into her vagina. … Rather than engaging in a conversation calculated to inform, the physician must continue talking regardless of whether the patient is listening. … Forcing this experience on a patient over her objections in this manner interferes with the decision of a patient not to receive information that could make an indescribably difficult decision even more traumatic and could “actually cause harm to the patient.” … (I)t is intended to convey not the risks and benefits of the medical procedure to the patient’s own health, but rather the full weight of the state’s moral condemnation.”

I applaud this ruling as a woman who has endured several ultrasounds to determine the health and well-being of my unborn children. I can fully imagine how horrible it would be to suffer such humiliation if I was seeking to terminate an unwanted or a tragically unsustainable pregnancy.  Ultrasounds require the patient to have a full bladder which is uncomfortable enough.  If the ultrasound technology being used was intravaginal, I most certainly would feel that I was being raped by a government that forced a stranger to maintain unwanted contact with my vagina while he or she robotically read from a lawfully imposed script.

North Carolina was not the only state to pass such a law.  There currently are 10 states with mandatory ultrasound laws.  Wisconsin Governor Scott K. Walker also was dealt a blow by this ruling.  The rumored presidential candidate defended his state’s law by saying this:

“I’m pro-life…  We defunded Planned Parenthood, we signed a law that requires an ultrasound…  Most people I talk to, whether they’re pro-life or not, I find people all the time who’ll get out their iPhone and show me a picture of their grandkids’ ultrasound …  I think about my sons are 19 and 20, you know we still have their first ultrasound picture. It’s just a cool thing out there.”

Governor, while you are thinking about your boys, think about this.  What if men were subjected to intrusive procedures like this one?  Say, for example, you were considering a therapy for an enlarged prostate gland.  In the middle of your proctological examination while you are bent over the examination table with your doctor’s digits in your rectum and your scrotum cupped in his hand, image having to listen to him recite a script regarding your examination and your treatment options.

Please turn your head and cough.  Again.  And, one more time, please.