The War on Women + State-Sanctioned Rape: Trans-Vaginal Ultrasound Laws in Virginia, Texas, and Iowa

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/20/the-war-on-women/

A nation’s progress should be measured as much by its advancement of human rights as by its accumulation and equitable distribution of wealth. Though conditioned on gender, race and property, we were the first nation on earth to embrace the fundamental principle of democracy. Had we remained as we were at our founding we would likely have dissolved as a nation but we changed. We progressed. We answered the challenges of human evolution.

With the adoption of a constitution replacing the Articles of Confederation, we announced to the world that we were one nation, united in principle and purpose. We became a union with a strong federal government that could defend our borders and guarantee the rights of our citizens enumerated in the Bill of Rights. We reformed our democracy by empowering the people to elect not only our representatives in the lower house but also our senators in the upper chamber of congress. We expanded our franchise by eliminating property as a condition of voting. We survived a bloody civil war, abolishing slavery and eventually welcoming all races to the full rights of citizenship. We enfranchised women.

Last among all our major advancements toward a more perfect democratic union and a more civilized society, we gave women the right to vote. The Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Voting Rights Act (1965), as well as Brown v. Board of Education (1954), went a long way toward assuring that the rights promised to racial minorities would be delivered by force of law. The Civil Rights Act was expanded at the last moment to include women but the Equal Rights Amendment, which would have banned all forms of sexual discrimination, failed. Now a majority of our citizenry, women were last to receive the vote and have never been granted full equality under the law of the land.

It is against this backdrop of neglect and abuse that the full-throttle assault on women’s rights must be viewed. When the birth control pill was approved for use in 1957, the liberating effect it had on women cannot be understated. Until then sexually active women who did not want to become pregnant had to convince male partners to wear a condom or relied on the notoriously ineffective rhythm method. As a result, women commonly experienced unwanted pregnancies. Until Roe v. Wade (1973) those women had no legal recourse in a majority of states but to give birth to an unwanted child. Many chose illegal and unsafe options, backroom abortions, rusty coat hangers in seedy hotels. Many died and many were permanently scarred.


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http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/02/15/government-sanctioned-rape-in-state-virginia-and-texas

State-Sanctioned Rape: Trans-Vaginal Ultrasound Laws in Virginia, Texas, and Iowa

Virginia is poised to send two of the most abhorrent anti-choice bills to Governor Bob McDonnell to sign. The governor, eyes trained on a vice presidential bid, has indicated he will sign at least one if not both of the bills. The first is a bill requiring the use of trans-vaginal ultrasound prior to a woman obtaining an abortion, the other is an egg-as-person bill. Like other failed "personhood" bills, the Virginia provision would outlaw not only abortion but also forms of hormonal birth control. Although the Governor has said he will consider the personhood bill he has been clear he would sign the forced ultrasound bill. But let's start calling this what it really is: state sanctioned rape.

In Virginia, rape is defined http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+18.2-61 as the following:


§ 18.2-61. Rape.

A. If any person has sexual intercourse with a complaining witness, whether or not his or her spouse, or causes a complaining witness, whether or not his or her spouse, to engage in sexual intercourse with any other person and such act is accomplished (i) against the complaining witness's will, by force, threat or intimidation of or against the complaining witness or another person; or (ii) through the use of the complaining witness's mental incapacity or physical helplessness; or (iii) with a child under age 13 as the victim, he or she shall be guilty of rape.

I called and emailed McDonnell’s press secretary Jeff Caldwell http://www.governor.virginia.gov/Contact.cfm asking if the forced vaginal ultrasound bill would in-fact overturn the rape statute. Caldwell did not return my call or email by the time of publication.

During the debate Republican State Del. Todd Gilbert said:

“the vast majority of these cases [abortion] are matters of lifestyle convenience.” And, 

“We think in matters of lifestyle convenience and in other matters that it is right and proper for a woman to be fully informed about what she is doing.”

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