dagblog - Comments for "Remember Transvaginal Ultrasounds? They're baaack."

You know, sometimes we miss

Richard Day — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 21:12:20 +0000

In reply to Remember Transvaginal Ultrasounds? They're baaack.

You know, sometimes we miss the good news.

This is just a follow up at Salon on Teen pregnancy rates:

http://www.salon.com/2013/02/11/teen_birth_rate_hits_a_record_low/

I nevertheless stick with my call for sterilization.

hahhahhahaha

Ultrasound is a good

ocean-kat — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 01:52:38 +0000

In reply to Ultrasounds are necessary to

Ultrasound is a good diagnostic tool. Its used in almost every pregnancy whether before an abortion or when a fetus is carried full term. Its simply not necessary to legislate it. There is no law requiring an ultrasound for pregnancies carried full term. Why not? Ultrasounds are commonly used to check organs, liver, kidney, heart, for lesions. Why not a law requiring it? Ultrasound is the preferred method for checking for tumors in the neck, thyroid, parathyroid, and salivary glands. Yet there is no law requiring it. Ultrasounds are is used in the investigation of anorectal symptoms such as fecal incontinence and obstructed defecation. Yet there is no law requiring an ultrasound and no push to require an anal probe ultrasound. Why not?

Vaginal ultrasounds are used to diagnose potential problems with a pregnancy in the presence of certain symptoms. There is rarely any medical necessity to shove an ultrasound probe up a women's vaginal. So why should women seeking an abortion be forced to have a vaginal ultrasound? If it is so important why not require all pregnant women to have a vaginal ultrasound?

Ultrasounds are already used before most abortions. So why the law? The simple fact is these laws are designed to use emotion to stop abortions. Unlike this Michigan law many of the other state laws require the women to look at the ultrasound. They often require the doctor to give a verbal explanation of the results of the sonogram images, including a medical description of the dimensions of the embryo or fetus, the presence of cardiac activity, and the presence of external members and internal organs. The women is often required to listen to a fetal heartbeat.

Here's the interesting thing. Some of the laws have exceptions, including pregnancies that resulted from sexual assault, incest or other violations of law. If these laws were concerned with medical necessity why would they have exceptions for rape and incest?

There is no medical reason for these laws. The anti-abortion crowd simply want to make abortions so difficult and distasteful to attempt to sway a women's choice.

I know they show MI as a blue

Ramona — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 19:38:50 +0000

In reply to Michigan is not a red state.

I know they show MI as a blue state on the electoral maps, but for all intents, it's a red state. We have a Republican governor and the Republicans hold a majority in both the House and the Senate. The MI supreme court has a Republican majority, as well. So any way you look at it, unless they actually start listening to the people and not the Kochs, ALEC and the Mackinac Center, we're screwed.

Michigan is not a red state.

trkingmomoe — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 04:40:52 +0000

In reply to It makes it tough for them

Michigan is not a red state. It has been kidnapped by gerrymandering. Republican women are slowly walking away and their daughters refuse to accept the bullying. I have known women here in Florida that after their husbands die they change their voter registration. They didn't want their husbands to know they preferred the Democrats now and had been voting for them. This one of the reasons Rove is taking on the fringe.

It makes it tough for them

Ramona — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 00:43:28 +0000

In reply to The issue of rolling back

It makes it tough for them that all those states getting into women's panties again are RED states. You're right; women notice those things. Except Republican women, that is. That could be a problem.

The issue of rolling back

trkingmomoe — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 00:34:13 +0000

In reply to Remember Transvaginal Ultrasounds? They're baaack.

The issue of rolling back reproductive rights of women has pushed women away from the GOP. As long as one state or another keep beating this drum, the political base for Republicans will get smaller. Women are paying attention to this all across the country.

Here's a 2010 paper at PubMed

artappraiser — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 17:51:00 +0000

In reply to I do wonder about those

Here's a 2010 paper at PubMed about a study on topic by the NYC Dept of Health & Mental Hygiene. I haven't looked at it but it sounds good because in the abstract it stresses that school neighborhood is one of the biggest factors, and that sounds very accurate to me:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20383750

I do wonder about those

artappraiser — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 17:41:13 +0000

In reply to Oh, I can just see the

I do wonder about those statistics, however: 110.7 births for every 1,000 back girls, compared with 16 births for every 1,000 white girls?

Remember that's for NYC, and our white people can't really be said to be equivalent to white people nationwide in many ways, not just teen pregnancy rates. Just for one thing, most working class and poor whites that work in the city don't live within the city line and the kids don't go to our schools. If they are residents of NYC, many of those might be in parochial schools, or specialty college-oriented public schools, like Bronx Science.

I'm in the Bronx, and I don't notice a lot of teen black mothers anymore, what I do see is teen Latina mothers. And I've also read about Latina teen pregnancy being higher than Afro-American in local media. I've read that enough that I wonder about the presentation of stats in that article myself.

The Latino immigrant culture here is mightly dominated by preference for family above all, with an attitude of "the more children, the merrier," though within marriage is of course preferred. I do see some evidence of the youngest Latino generation starting to care more for education before children, but not like in Southern California, where that change is stronger. Bronx "Latina" culture is highly Caribbean, different from much of the rest of the country--many from the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and Central American, with Mexicans actually relatively rare until the last decade.

If you go back to the link

Richard Day — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 14:10:43 +0000

In reply to Hi Richard. I just wanted

If you go back to the link you will find that the contention is that NY is one of 21 states that allows minors and others access to birth control.

And the problem with the TP link is that it really amounts to nothing but a squib. And I attempted to check links within the links and...

So I guess I will check PP later on and such for the stats.

Anyway 29 states aint doin much in this area!

Oh, I can just see the

Ramona — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 13:33:24 +0000

In reply to I just came across this item

Oh, I can just see the puritans tearing their hair out over this:

The city has worked to make it easier for kids to get birth control — giving out condoms at schools and making birth control and the morning-after pill available in some school clinics, a sometimes controversial move.

Farley said the numbers show that strategy is working.

“It shows that when you make condoms and contraception available to teens, they don’t increase their likelihood of being sexually active. But they get the message that sex is risky,” he said. [...]

Teen pregnancy in the city is still higher than it is nationwide, but it has fallen at a sharper rate, officials said.

Plan B makes such infinite sense you have to wonder who could find a problem with it? It's contraception-on-demand, the most logical form of birth control. So much better than having to take pills for a month, just in case. Yet, look at the fuss they've made over it. It's not about birth control, it's about controlling women. It's always about controlling women.

I do wonder about those statistics, however: 110.7 births for every 1,000 back girls, compared with 16 births for every 1,000 white girls? I would like to see more about this.