An argument is going around the reproductive rights community that the new ultrasound law is state-mandated rape by instrumentation. Representative Hamilton, who supports the ultrasound bill and the authored the state's rape by instrumentation law, claims that it's a "silly" argument. It isn't rape because instruments are used during abortion anyway in this segment from KOKH Fox 25:
http://www.okcfox.com/newsroom/top_stories/videos/kokh_vid_1448.shtml
Hamilton seems to forget what the word "consent" means. A woman does not have the option of consenting to the ultrasound. It is state mandated. This could be construed as rape by instrumentation. Especially when the instrument looks like this: http://www.bandafix.com/files/429807s16.jpg
A woman does consent to an abortion when she chooses to have one (which could be medically induced, so instrumentation might not be used anyway). Thus it is not rape.
3 comments:
NewsBusters: Rape by Ultrasound? Media Further Pro-choice Talking Points About Oklahoma Law
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jill-stanek/2010/05/07/rape-ultrasound
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Technically, a woman consents to an abortion when she obtains one. This law is written to include the use of vaginal probe ultrasounds as part and parcel of an abortion, in states wherein this law is enacted. It's a catch 22: if you consent to an abortion, you're consenting to the insertion of a probe to determine the developmental stage of your fetus. If you don't consent to the probe, you don't consent to the abortion, and you won't be given access to a legal medical procedure, because you refuse an illegal one. Therefore, in legalese, it cannot be rape. But it is STILL coercion, which is the premise upon which a Federal Judge has suspended the enforcement of this stupid law here.
Long live America.
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