Too Much (Inaccurate) Information

Daily News Columnist Ronnie Polaneczky talks about her transvaginal sonogram with Pa. Attorney General candidate Kathleen Kane, who has had one too. Both are outraged about a proposed new state law that would require women seeking an abortion to have a sonogram first.

Kane found her ultrasounds "invasive, uncomfortable and often humiliating." My experience was similar, despite the sensitivity, kindness and professionalism of the technician administering the diagnostic test. 

It's hard to hang onto your dignity when you're naked from the waist down, your feet are in stirrups and your vagina is being probed with a 10-inch wan

Yes, well, we all are put in undignified positions when it comes to protecting our health. But what do the sort of invasive examinations so vividly described by Polaneczky have to do with House Bill 1077? There is nothing in the bill that requires ANY woman to have a "transvaginal" sonogram. I just read it. All it requires is a standard pregnancy sonogram, which is completely non-invasive.

In fact the New York Times lists the types of sonograms on its Health Page. A pregnancy sonogram provides images of the fetus. A transvaginal is, and I quote "used to look at a woman's reproductive organs, including the uterus, ovaries, cervix, and vagina."


Both Polanecsky and Kane had these procedures done for their own reproductive health concerns. But they had nothing to do with determining anything about a fetus, abortion or anyone's right to informed consent.


I am personally against such a legal requirement when it comes to a woman procuring an abortion. 


Though I am all for informed consent, clearly this law is designed to discourage abortion by creating another hoop for women to jump through. 


But I am even more against people in the media misrepresenting the truth about what the law would require.


You have to read down a ways in Polanecsky's piece, past all the "transvaginal" talk, to get to this: 

The ultrasound wouldn't always be the version in which a transponder is run over a woman's belly, since that test may not yield the information called for by the bill. So the woman could be forced to undergo the more invasive transvaginal version.

"Could be?" Really? Sez who? And by whom? Who is going to force this theoretical woman to undergo the more invasive procedure? The caring folks at Planned Parenthood who perform the vast majority of abortions in this state? 


This is pure hooey. And it continues...

The forced test has been likened to rape (why not add candlelight and Barry White, and call it date rape?). But since it's being pushed in a bill sponsored by a gaggle of anti-choicers, the bill has been cynically dubbed "The Woman's Right-to-Know Act."

The bill IS being pushed by a gaggle of anti-choicers. But it is being fought by a gaggle of pro-choicers who are twisting and flat-out lying about what the bill requires.


It's possible that some who have come out against the bill are just confused. 


For instance, in an editorial in the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal says... 

But the wording of HB 1077 is specific in that it requires the attending physician to measure the gestational sac if an embryo is too small to be seen. An external ultrasound cannot effectively measure the gestational sac in women who are less than 12 weeks pregnant — which is when most abortions are performed.

         That usually requires a transvaginal ultrasound.

Here's what the actual wording of the bill says: 

"When only the gestational sac is visible during an ultrasound test, gestational age may be based upon measurement of the gestational sac."

Get it? The doctor gets to estimate the age of the fetus based on on what is visible on the ultrasound. The law does't require him/her to do another, more invasive test. What part of "may be" don't these people understand?


Polanecsky credits our own state Rep. Tom Killion for bailing on the bill, which she again inaccurately claims contains a "mandate" for "an invasive medical test."


Candidate Kane incredibly and dumbly compares the requiring of a sonogram before an abortion to an "illegal search." This is certainly ironic, given that most prenatal testing is done to find out if there is anything wrong with the fetus - like Down syndrome, for instance - so that it can be quickly destroyed and disposed of. Such legal "search and destroy" missions are now common place in America.


Polanecsky wraps up her column congratulating Kane - and by extension, herself - for being willing to discuss such uncomfortably, personal things.

I applaud Kane for going public about something many women would be too squeamish to discuss. And I hope more women follow her example.

If we don't tell it like it is, those Harrisburg yahoos will never get it.

This isn't telling it like it is. It's telling it like it isn't. There's a word for that.

UPDATE: When similar complaints about Virginia's sonogram law were raised it's sponsors simply included language saying no transvaginal sonograms would be required. That bill was signed into a few weeks ago. Again, I'm personally against such a requirement. But I'm also against such phony claims being asserted in and by the media.