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Ultrasounds Before Abortions Aren't 'Sinister'

It's all about 'informed choice'

By John Johnson,  Newser Staff

Posted May 1, 2010 1:45 PM CDT

(Newser) – Kathleen Parker agrees with Bill Clinton that abortions should be "safe, legal, and rare." Toward the latter point, she comes down in favor of the recent spate of laws requiring women who are considering abortion to get an ultrasound and at least listen to a description of it. "I can't muster outrage over what can be viewed as both medically pragmatic and morally defensible," she writes in her Washington Post column.

Thanks to those ubiquitous protester signs, "we know what abortion looks like," she writes. "Shouldn't pregnant women also know what their healthy fetuses look like before they hit delete?" It's not a "sinister" question, she says. "As an advocate for informed choice, I can't rationalize ignorance or denial as preferable options for women in need of sound counseling. Or for a nation that wants to make abortion rare."

Ultrasounds before abortions make sense for 'informed choice,' says Kathleen Parker.
Ultrasounds before abortions make sense for 'informed choice,' says Kathleen Parker.   (Shutterstock)
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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 80 comments
BleeBloo
May 3, 2010 6:51 PM CDT
Thanks to those ubiquitous protester signs, "we know what abortion looks like," she writes.

Too bad she's ABSOLUTELY WRONG. Eighty-three percent of abortions are done when the fetus looks more like a shrimp than a person, and is smaller than a kidney bean. Protesters use images that are actually from very late-term miscarraiges. You know, the abortions their loving GOD gives to women who want their fetuses.
jioan
May 2, 2010 11:59 PM CDT
YES! schmidkoff
so true-I knew there was a reason why I stopped watching tv-since I just started again I am inflicted with those ridiculous commercials about the tragic & traumatic possibility of missing the "right moment"; due to erectile dysfunction. How much time & energy is spent on male satisfaction rather than possibility of male birth control & male responsibility when children are born. How about not missing the "moment" of birth, and child support payments for those not there...how about men not using their energy controlling women's bodies & work on their issues such as the fascination with war and aggression-risking the very lives that they currently force women to produce against their will.
schmidtkoff
May 2, 2010 4:41 PM CDT
women who consider abortion have already "counseled" themselves and decided that which is best for them. this is all about circumventing the supreme court ruling on abortion. this is bullshit. now women have to jump through hoops, view ultrasounds, get counseling on the ramifications of said procedure. efffff you males who are determined to usurp a woman's right to her own body. and IT is the MALE sex who are proponents of such draconian ideology. can we talk penile dysfunction here and that little blue pill? they would howl like a wolf on an arid arizona desert if that was taken from them. get out of my life, my body and myself. if i lived in okie - and wanted an abortion, i would go post haste, to another state. okie be damed.

 
abortion • anti-abortion activists • ultrasound • abortion debate • pro-choice

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