Behind the Pro-Abortion Hysteria over the Use of Ultrasounds

By Dave Andrusko

Pro-abortionists don’t take kindly to “pro-life” legislation, we understand that. What is more difficult to understand (on first blush) is why they go to DepCon 4 over bills that the public supports by large margins because they are “common sense.”

Indeed, there is almost an inverse relationship between the depth of the support and the level of hysteria. For example, there is the Prenatal Non-Discrimination Act (or PRENDA) which the House Judiciary Committee just passed 20-13. Polls show overwhelming opposition to aborting a child because of her gender.

Only the most unthinking, zealously pro-abortion feminist could support taking the lives of female babies BECAUSE they are female.

And, of course, a law that is intended to stop abortions based on the child’s race—PRENDA would ban the coercion of any woman to abort a child based on the child’s race– is (in the upside down world of pro-abortionists) a sign of racism. Go figure.

And so it is the case with informed consent laws that give a mother a last-chance to see an ultrasound picture of the baby she is proposing to abort. Pro-abortionists reach deep into their box of epithets down to and including “rape” [!] to describe the use of a vaginal traducer. Let’s deep beneath the hyperbole and reach the truth which our benighted opposition continues to obscure.

· A vaginal transducer is widely used by abortion providers to accurately date the pregnancy since it depicts a clearer image in early pregnancy. So, to be clear, the use of ultrasounds—and therefore a vaginal transducer—is common place in abortion clinics.

· How universally? A 2003 study found that in early surgical abortions, vaginal ultrasound is ALWAYS used in 83% of abortion facilities and under certain conditions in 16% of facilities—a total of 99% use vaginal ultrasound for early surgical abortions.

· How about so-called “medical abortions” (RU486)? Vaginal ultrasound is ALWAYS used in 92% of abortion facilities and under certain conditions in 5% of facilities. That is, a total of 97% of all abortion facilities surveyed in the 2003 study used vaginal ultrasound for “medical” abortions. (That same study found that more abortion clinics would have used the vaginal ultrasound every time, but they did not have enough access to the equipment.)

Keep that truth handy for the next time a pro-abortion legislator goes off the deep end.

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I should also note, of course, that even after the bishops were taking dramatic steps in speaking out against it, it still wasn’t getting coverage” (emphasis mine).

The transcript further illustrates their unwillingness to do anything with the obvious—that the “mainstream media” is not exactly a hotbed of devout religious believers, as any number of surveys attest—and how this possible “tin ear” (Kurtz’s description) may have colored their coverage.

For her part Hemingway offers a series of insights which helps us to understand the bottom line which is “why so many stories accept the White House framework on this topic”? The answer?“They accept the framework in part because they agree with it.”