They Feel Pleasure

Given the revelations of the other day, I now have to wonder at two coincident trends in the continued governmental intrusion into the lady-parts of the lady-people in our country: the federal ban of all abortions after 20 weeks gestation, and the state and local laws requiring trans-vaginal sonograms for women who have indicated their desire for an abortion procedure to be done on them.

 

The House recently passed a hugely restrictive and probably unconstitutional bill to ban all abortions (except in the cases of rape, incest, or the health of the mother) after a 20 week gestation period.

Say the backers of this bill, a human fetus is able to feel pain after 20 weeks, and so the infliction of pain on a fetus during abortion termination is considered to be a reason to ban abortions after that date.

Congressman Michael Burgess, an OB/GYN himself, has objected to this time period, saying that a human fetus can feel pain well before the 20 week cutoff period. Burgess says that he has participated in the “delivery of thousands of babies, attending thousands of women during their pregnancy, performance of thousands of sonograms.”

“Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful. They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to believe that they could feel pain?”

OK, that was, as the kids say these days, TMI.

But then I started to ask myself, how does one get to view thousands of sonograms if not for the fact that they are mandated by state law for every abortion procedure in that state, whether it is clinically necessary or not.

And then, stepping onto ground that I really don’t wish to tread, asking myself whether there is a causal connection between these required sonograms and some legislators or doctors who simply “like to watch.”