Ultrasound: latest tool in battle over abortion
Images of fetuses are at the center of a hot debate over states' 'witness to the womb' laws.
from the May 15, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
Ten states with 'witness to womb' laws
Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas, Idaho, and Michigan now require doctors to offer women seeking abortions an opportunity to view an ultrasound. Laws in Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wisconsin require that doctors inform women that ultrasounds are available. In all, 22 pieces of ultrasound legislation were introduced in 15 states this year, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a liberal think tank in Washington.
"If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much can we tell about life from a picture of the womb?" asks Patrick Jacks of Fort Mill, an abortion opponent who spoke at the March hearing.
Most of the approximately 1.3 million women who have abortions each year are neither offered nor shown ultrasound images by their doctors. Many obstetricians have testified that in most cases it's not medically necessary for these women to see the images.
Mandating it assumes "that women are somehow how being rushed into making these decisions," says Elizabeth Nash, a policy analyst at the Guttmacher Institute. Others argue that such laws whittle away at women's rights to abortion.
"It's obvious that what's being done is an attempt to dissuade a woman from having an abortion, the assumption being that if she sees a growing life inside her, she will hesitate or change her mind," says Harvey Kornberg, a political scientist at Rider University in Lawrenceville, N.J.
Court precedent allows states some leeway to limit abortion. On average, 1,000 measures on reproductive-health issues are introduced in the states each year. That trend was bolstered when the US Supreme Court upheld a state's ban on so-called partial-birth abortion on April 19, says Mr. Kornberg. About one-third of states, mostly in the South and Midwest, will continue to impose restrictions on abortion, experts predict.
"We're beginning to see these kinds of laws … to encourage pregnancy – and we're going to see more," says Kornberg.
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