Virginia abortion bills denigrate all women | Ultrabook Notebook Tipis Harga Murah Terbaik
Few words carry the ugliness and sadness as the word abortion. It means to stop, to terminate.
In the political realm, it means to kill. We are hearing the word all too often these days.
In the General Assembly, three bills that would force all women undergoing an abortion to submit to an invasive ultrasound — inserting a device into her body — so as to see the fetus growing inside, are drawing great attention around the country.
The bills that have been introduced would require physicians to carry out the ultrasound exam two hours before the abortion and offer the woman the opportunity to view the images and hear the fetus's heartbeat.
A similar bill, one that would define the unborn as people, is also gaining attention. In public discourse, the conversation goes from bad to worse. If you believe that abortion is killing a child, then perhaps the dramatic and emotional opportunity for the mother to see and hear the fetus could change her mind, and, in your mind, save a life.
But we have a hard time believing that any woman goes through this process without some soul-searching and without the knowledge that the procedure is irrevocable. Virginia law already requires counseling on the procedure and what it means.
So what is left after this medically unnecessary probe and another two hours of consideration, is an even more emotionally distraught Virginian left to try to recover and go on with her life. Perhaps that is the goal of these drastic bills written by socially conservative lawmakers frustrated by their inability to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.
And in their methodically angry attempt to thwart a law they don't like, they are willing to emotionally bash women with no regard to the situations that bring them to a legal clinic in the first place. It is as if showing gruesome photographs of an aborted fetus haven't gotten the attention anti-abortion activists wanted. And in the so-called debate in this latest battle of the anti-abortion and the abortion rights crowd, the rhetoric gets louder and more vicious.
Perhaps, we all are so desensitized by the caricatures of abortion that we have forgotten the woman who is going through it. She is not a criminal, though she might be a rapist's victim. She's not a thoughtless being who prefers this method to contraception. She's a woman who for whatever reason is not ready to be a mother.
She most certainly does not deserve to bear the brunt of ugly legislation.
What about this makes us proud to be Virginians?
We all would be better served if opponents of abortion sought out ways to fight the root causes of unplanned and unwanted pregnancies. Healthy and honest discussions in a comprehensive course of sexual education is a good start.
If our lawmakers found ways to adequately care for the at-risk among us, support children in poverty and fully fund programs that help young people build a healthy self-esteem and seek out healthy relationships, fewer young women would endure abortions.
And more young people would raise healthy children and break the cycle of teen parenthood and domestic violence.
Instead, here in the 21st century, our legislators would rather use their power to bully the women seeking abortions. These drastic measures, should they become law, won't stop abortions and they, most certainly, will not save lives.
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