Ultrasounds and the Fourth Amendment
I am glad that Virginia governor Bob McDonnell decided not to support a bill that would require all women to undergo ultrasounds in order to get an abortion, which would de facto require them to have a probe inserted into their private parts. (A typical ultrasound, involving a wand on your belly, would not work early in a pregnancy.) McDonnell said, “No person should be directed to undergo an invasive procedure by the state, without their consent, as a precondition to another medical procedure.” I agree with him completely. But it seems that he withdrew his support for the law not because he personally opposes it but because his advisors told him that it could violate the Fourth Amendment.
This raises an interesting point, and I agree that this requirement violates the Fourth Amendment. An ultrasound is, in a way, a search of a person’s body, and in this case an extremely invasive one, which people would be forced to undergo as a condition of exercising their right to abortion. I agree with a Boston Globe editorial stating that this law “would physically violate women,” as well as with people who have called it “state-sponsored rape” and who have said it would “force doctors to rape their patients”
Many people have the principled stance of opposing abortion and wanting to outlaw it, and although I do not agree with them, I respect their opinion. But to require an ultrasound at all, and especially to call this requirement a “women’s right to-know-bill,” is paternalistic and degrading. No bill is needed to ensure that people have the right to know the status of their fetus before having an abortion; I am sure that in this culture of excessive medical tests and procedures, most doctors would agree to do an ultrasound if asked. Requiring people to know something is far different from allowing them to know, and it is insulting to people’s rationality to assume that they cannot know what fetuses look like and that they have a heartbeat without personally seeing and hearing this. As Virginia democratic chair Brian Moran said, even if a law does not require a physically invasive ultrasound, it still ”forces an unnecessary medical procedure on Virginia women whether their doctors think they need it or not.” (As a side note, although I agree with his general point, I would add that it shouldn’t even be up to doctors what medical procedures someone needs; it should be up to the individual.)
To require a physically invasive procedure adds to what is already a bad idea. In addition to the fact that people who support liberty should be vehemently opposed to anyone being required to undergo a medical procedure, one would think that social conservatives, who are supposed to support modesty and the dignity of all people, would, if anything, want to discourage people from having their private parts examined and probed.
During debate on the bill, Virginia state senator Janet Howell proposed an amendment stating, ”Prior to prescribing medication for erectile dysfunction, a physician shall perform a digital rectal examination and a cardiac stress test.” I guess she was trying to prove a point, but I have to object any attempt to pass such an amendment, even if meant as satire. Requiring people, as a condition of anything, to undergo an invasive procedure involving the most private parts of the body, is horrible regardless of gender.
It is wrong whenever any government, organization, or person interferes with a person’s right to make their own decisions about their lives or their bodies. But it is especially horrific when a violation of someone’s liberty also involves taking away their innocence, integrity, or dignity. That is exactly what the transvaginal ultrasound requirement would do. It is also what the TSA does through its virtual strip searches and pat-downs, which Governor McDonnell (correctly) called ”probably over the line with regard to people’s concerns about privacy and their civil liberties.” It is what law enforcement does by forcing defendants to undergo strip searches and even more invasive searches when they have not been proven guilty of any wrongdoing. And it is also what doctors do when they require patients to undergo similarly invasive exams as a condition of any medication or treatment.
I am glad that so many people were outraged by the invasive ultrasound requirement. There should be just as much outrage at all violations of people’s liberty and dignity.
