{"id":6713,"date":"2012-02-22T15:22:35","date_gmt":"2012-02-22T15:05:54","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-02-22T15:05:54","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=6713","title":{"rendered":"NJToday.net: “There Is Nothing Constitutional About State-Mandated Transvaginal Ultrasounds”"},"content":{"rendered":"

NJToday.net: There Is Nothing Constitutional About State-Mandated Transvaginal Ultrasounds<\/a> by John W. Whitehead:<\/p>\n

\u201cWomen might consider this bill a TSA pat-down inside their vagina.\u201d<\/em> \u2013 Jon Stewart, The Daily Show<\/p>\n

Contraception and abortion are shaping up to be mobilizing issues in this year\u2019s presidential election. From disputes over whether the federal health care mandate should cover contraception and abortion to state-led efforts to undermine abortion by, among other things, requiring that women seeking to have abortions be subjected to invasive transvaginal ultrasounds without their consent, these highly partisan issues keep us divided and distracted, and incapable of doing anything to prevent the steady erosion of our rights by the powers that be.<\/p>\n

The latest political kerfuffle to make national headlines comes out of Virginia, where women\u2019s rights advocates are mobilizing over legislation requiring that doctors act as agents of the state and subject women seeking abortions to ultrasound procedures, which in many cases would mean an invasive transvaginal probe, without their consent. This legislation encapsulates exactly how disrespectful of life and freedom the dialogue on abortion has become.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

The issue, however, is not even whether or not a transvaginal ultrasound is widely used or is medically necessary in order for a doctor to carry out an early-stage abortion. The point is that requiring doctors to carry out such invasive probes on a woman without her consent, thereby intruding upon the physician-patient relationship and reducing doctors to agents of the state, violates the Fourth Amendment\u2019s prohibition against searches by government agents. Frankly, no medical actor, doctor or otherwise, should be coerced by the state into probing a woman\u2019s body. By mandating that doctors carry out such invasive probes on a woman without her consent, the bill\u2019s sponsors trade one misdeed (abortion) for another (violating a woman\u2019s Fourth Amendment right to be free from searches by government agents).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Besides being an unreasonable search, it would be rape under most state laws by forced penetration by a foreign object against a woman’s will. State sanctioned rape by foreign object?<\/p>\n

For many in the GOP, there is more of a constitutional right to the light bulb of your choice<\/a> than in bodily integrity or bedroom privacy. How twisted is that?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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