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The New York Times Dismisses
Impact of Ultrasounds, But
Patients' Comments Suggest
Otherwise Part Two of Three By Dave Andrusko You can always tell when you are making headway. Mouthpieces for the Abortion Establishment will run news stories insisting that whatever measure you've undertaken to help women make a genuinely informed choice about whether to abort is a waste of time, worse yet cruel/patronizing/counterproductive.
I give you yesterday's, "In Ultrasound, Abortion Fight Has New Front," which appeared in the New York Times. To read Kevin Sack's account, the more states that adopt laws giving women a chance to look at an ultrasound, the more the evidence that accumulates to prove they are ineffective. What makes this piece interesting is the argument that not only do virtually no women change their mind, some may feel better about their abortion having seen an ultrasound. "It just looked like a little egg, and I couldn't see arms or legs or a face," said Tiesha, 27, who chose to view her 8-week-old embryo before aborting it at the Birmingham clinic. "It was really the picture of the ultrasound that made me feel it was O.K." Really? Let's ask ourselves just two questions. First, is the Abortion Establishment really so noble that the only reason they fight ultrasound laws is because "They inappropriately interfere with the patient-doctor relationship, and they don't respect women's ability to make informed choices," as Vicki A. Saporta, the president of the National Abortion Federation, told Sacks. Ask around and what you'll find out is that when women (and especially girls) learn they have an unplanned pregnancy, many simply panic. They do look around for support--especially from the father or their own parents--but gathering information about who it is that they is on his/her journey is rarely at the top of their to-do list. An ultrasound could easily be the only time she really comes to grips with what she is doing--and to whom. Second, if we listen carefully, might we not come away with a conclusion totally different than the one the reporter dutifully recycles? One woman carries the narrative, a divorced woman with a 17-year-old son, who came to the Birmingham, Alabama abortion clinic, we're told, with her mind made up. "And she felt that seeing the image of her bean-size fetus would only unleash her already hormonal emotions, without changing her mind," Sacks writes. "'It just would have added to the pain of what is already a difficult decision,' she said later." The story ends with the woman taking umbrage that people would think she'd had an abortion for trivial reasons. According to Sacks, a number of women "simply did not want to subject themselves to images that might haunt them. "'You almost have to think of it as an alien,' said Carmen, 28, who was there for her second abortion in three years. " Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com and also read "National Right to Life News Today" (www.nationalrighttolifenews.org). |
