'We Have No Choice': One Woman's Ordeal with Texas' New Sonogram Law

[swag]

http://www.texasobserver.org/cover-story/the-right-not-to-know

Halfway through my pregnancy, I learned that my baby was ill. Profoundly so. My doctor gave us the news kindly, but still, my husband and I weren’t prepared. Just a few minutes earlier, we’d been smiling giddily at fellow expectant parents as we waited for the doctor to see us. In a sonography room smelling faintly of lemongrass, I’d just had gel rubbed on my stomach, just seen blots on the screen become tiny hands. For a brief, exultant moment, we’d seen our son—a brother for our 2-year-old girl.

Yet now my doctor was looking grim and, with chair pulled close, was speaking of alarming things. “I’m worried about your baby’s head shape,” she said. “I want you to see a specialist—now.”

My husband looked angry, and maybe I did too, but it was astonishment more than anger. Ours was a profound disbelief that something so bad might happen to people who think themselves charmed. We already had one healthy child and had expected good fortune to give us two.

. . .

My counselor said that the law required me to have another ultrasound that day, and that I was legally obligated to hear a doctor describe my baby. I’d then have to wait 24 hours before coming back for the procedure. She said that I could either see the sonogram or listen to the baby’s heartbeat, adding weakly that this choice was mine.

. . . more


http://www.texasobserver.org/cover-story/the-right-not-to-know

[Old and In the Way]

1. Sadly, there are going to be many more stories like this.

The consequences of bad law won't go away....but many the Republican Party will.

[Suich]

2. This is tragic.

[HockeyMom]

3. Witth the extreme religious not even the life of the mother matters

not even for a doomed tubal pregnancy. God's will. BOTH of you die, even if medical science CAN save the woman. Cannot abort that baby. Let the tube rupture, God taking the matter OUT of our hands, and we will then try to save the woman. Thank you very much. Your DEAD EMBRYO is more important than an adult woman.

BTW, they DON'T want to show the woman her RUPTURED fallopian tube sonogram. No, no, no. No guilt for "killing your baby" on that one.

[Warpy]

8. To religious patriarchs, the mother isn't even a human being

She's been reduced to breeding stock, only, with no thoughts, feelings or rights of her own. She's been rendered invisible and the rights of a fetus, not yet human, are paramount.

This is why devout religion is getting to be one of my benchmarks to disqualify someone from public office.

[eShirl]

4. So cruel!

That poor woman.

[Arkansas Granny]

5. This goes beyond sad. This is inhumane.

[lastlib]

6. My loathing for these savages grows daily!

This is NOT the Dark Ages! But our knuckle-dragging troglodyte lawmakers are going to turn it into that if WE don't get out and FIGHT THEM!

[KT2000]

7. Want to bet that

next year there will be additional "requirements" approved by the legislature.
These people are obsessed and sick - they want women to suffer.

[krispos42]

9. Dammit.