I Hate Florida, And It's Not Just Because The Gators Suck

In an attempt thinly veiled as "safe health care," Florida legislature has voted to require a woman to have an ultrasound before having an abortion. This is terrible on so many levels.

Uno, this implies that women don't think about what pregnancy and abortion mean and that we need to have a medical test to teach us about our own bodies.

B, any responsible doctor or clinic will perform an ultrasound before an abortion for several (legitimate) reasons. They need to confirm that the woman is, in fact, pregnant and that her pregnancy is not ectopic (occurring outside the uterus). I know that at PP-NYC they will perform an ultrasound and if your pregnancy is ectopic they will escort you to the emergency room right away.

Three, we know their reasoning behind this isn't really promoting quality medical care, it's encouraging doctors to show women the ultrasound and point out the embryo in an appeal to them not to terminate. Which as we all know is a disgusting invasion of a woman's agency over her own body.

Oh, and apparently this bill also adds that causing a miscarriage through violence against a pregnant woman will result in a murder charge, no matter how far along the pregnancy is. It defines life as beginning at conception for criminal proceedings.

Now, if a woman is pregnant and you commit a violent act against her, yes, there is something wrong with you. But the crime is against the woman, and that is where we should focus our energy.

Defining life at conception is a serious attack on our right to make decisions over our own bodies. This is a step in a slippery slope toward completely taking away our freedom of choice. They have disguised it as only taking place during a violent act, but all this bill does is get it into the law that life is at conception, which means the anti-choice woman-hating right wing can point at that in the future and say "see, it says here life is at conception, so we should take away abortions!" They are sneaky and crafty like that.