BY WANDA JO STAPLETON
I watched with interest the recent presidential debates in New Hampshire as candidates pandered to extreme right-wingers.
First, Mitt Romney dodged questions about a ban on contraception but reaffirmed his commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade. Then Rick Santorum declared that states should be able to outlaw contraception!
Finally, most of presidential candidates vowed to prevent Planned Parenthood from providing health care to the millions of women which is mainly preventive in nature: birth control and testing plus treatment of sexually transmitted diseases.
Equally bad, here in Oklahoma, draconian anti-woman legislation, HB 2780, passed the Oklahoma Legislature in April 2010, and became law.
That law mandates that a woman or girl seeking an abortion must have an ultrasound within an hour of the procedure. Specifically, the law requires that an instrument, called a transducer, be inserted in the vagina if that method produces the best ultrasound image. That image must then be described in detail, even by an unwilling doctor to an unwilling patient.
Gov. Brad Henry vetoed the bill and declared that “a citizen forced to undergo any medical procedure against his or her will … amounts to an unconstitutional invasion of privacy.”
The Legislature overrode the governor’s veto but the law has not gone into effect because of a court challenge. The New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights is helping challenge the ultrasound law in Oklahoma County court.
If these types of laws stand, it’s back to the Dark Ages for women and physicians who treat them.
– Wanda Jo Stapleton is a former Democratic state representative from Oklahoma City and a frequent contributor to The Oklahoma Observer
Thank You Wanda Jo, for reminding us why Roe V. Wade passed in the first place — to protect the privacy and rights of women.
Roe v. Wade was enacted to protect a doctor’s relationship with his/her female patient. To keep abusive family members, ex-boyfriends, ministers, legislators and other irrelevant people OUT of the intimate, private discussions between a woman and her doctor.
Women are not second rate citizens with fewer rights than their male counterparts. Women can and do think for themselves. They don’t need big government, religious leaders, legislators or anyone else looking over their shoulder during discussions regarding their health.
Thanks, Parrothead. The 38th anniversary of Roe v Wade occurs on Sunday, January 22.
Also the court-challenged Oklahoma law requiring a transducer up the vagina is nothing more than rape by instrumentation disguised as a medical procedure.
Even some of the wingnuts think contraception is good. We need to make sure as many people as possible know that Santorum and maybe Mitt think the right to use them is iffy.