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Senate Bill 1433 has Oklahomans choosing sides. The measure, which states that life starts at conception, passed a committee this week with a 5-2 vote. Sen. Constance Johnson says, “That to me is the greatest intrusion of government yet in the State of Oklahoma into people’s private lives.”
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Bill 1433 states all unborn children should have protected interests in life, health and well-being.

However, critics say it could impact families who use in-vitro fertilization, women who have miscarriages or those who take birth control.
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Although Senate Bill 1433 made it out of its committee, it will have several more rounds of votes before it is either killed or made law. http://www.kfor.com/news/local/kfor-controversial-bill-draws-national-
attention-20120212,0,1222083.story?hpt=po_bn6

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it could impact families who use in-vitro fertilization, women who have miscarriages or those who take birth control.

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Apparently, government is so small it can crawl up inside your womb

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Many bloggers and commentators have expressed outrage over the decision by Virginia to require ultrasound examination, possibly transvaginal ultrasound, prior to women obtaining an abortion. From Bill Maher to Dahlia Lithwick people are outraged and have even suggested that it should be considered rape to force women to undergo vaginal examination by ultrasound prior to receiving abortion. Worse, it's clear from statements like this one by delegate Todd Gilbert, that there isn't a medical concern related to this intervention. It's simply designed to humiliate women and interfere with the doctor patient relationship with exclusively anti-abortion motivations:

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"the vast majority of these cases [abortion] are matters of lifestyle convenience." And, ??"We think in matters of lifestyle convenience and in other matters that it is right and proper for a woman to be fully informed about what she is doing.

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This just reflects how stupid these guys are, because anyone with half a brain could come up superficially plausible defense of the statute from grounds of medical safety. They're just too brainless to do so and clearly are just trying to interfere with women and their doctors as they try to make a difficult decision.

So, what Virginia has done has legislated a requirement for an unnecessary medical procedure, unsupported by any professional medical association, on a specific subpopulation of women. Given the history of forced sterilization in Virginia, you'd think they'd be more sensitive on this issue. This is the state where Buck v Bell brought the issue of forced medical procedures to light.

This statute cannot, therefore, stand on either medical ethical or constitutional grounds. The state legislature can not force me or any other physician to perform an unnecessary, and therefore unethical, medical procedure. The state legislature can not pick on a subpopulation of citizens and force them to receive an unnecessary medical procedure.

I don't think this law will stand, but it once again will require a legal fight, waste of time and resources, and all of this once again in a effort by governmental busybodies to interfere in women's health decisions in a punitive fashion. The Republicans need to watch out. This is just another indication of a the size of the assault on women's reproductive rights, and if they keep pushing, they're going to see what a mistake it is to piss off 51% of the population.

**Update: I also noticed from Lithwick's article Virginia has enacted a personhood law saying life begins at conception. More idiocy. This is like Indiana legislating the value of pi = 3. It is unscientific and illogical. Life does not begin. It is continuous. There is no dead state between parents and offspring. Sperm are alive, eggs are alive, the fusion of the two is alive. Instead they are legislating what constitutes life that is important, or more likely "ensouled". As a fundamentally philosophic/religious and ultimately arbitrary point, government has no business legislating such a thing. But legislating that life has a "beginning" is biologically ignorant. http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2012/02/forcing_doctors_to_perform_u
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Texas implements forced ultrasound abortion law

The bullying of women and choice continues with more anti abortion legislation. Texas has become the first state to have the strictest of laws regarding ultrasounds before abortion.

On hold since October of 2011 while it cleared legal hurdles, the sonogram law was upheld by U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks recently and has already gone into effect. While forced to allow the law, Judge Sparks theorizes the law violates the First Amendment rights of physicians.

Doctors had sued to block the law citing that the law forces them to perform a procedure that is not medically necessary or that women don’t wish to have.

Texas Department of State Health Services has posted guidelines for abortion providers. Any abortion providers that fail to comply with the new guidelines face penalties of up to $1,000 per violation per day. The providers will be subject to inspections to insure the new rules are followed. Doctors who fail to comply with the law could lose their medical license, be charged with a misdemeanor and face fines of up to $10,000.

Sadly, the biggest toll will be on the women themselves.

The new guidelines are:

- At least 24 hours before performing an abortion, doctors must show the woman the sonogram image. The patient has the option of looking away from the screen.
- While showing the sonogram image the doctor must describe to the patient the fetuses features and stages of development.
- Doctors must also play the fetal heartbeat aloud to the patient.

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The most extreme ultrasound restriction in the country, the law prohibits a woman from getting an abortion unless she first has an ultrasound, is shown the ultrasound image and listens to her doctor describe the image in detail.

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January 10, 2012: The 5th U.S. Circuit Court Of Appeals is totally down with forcing doctors to tell women needless and harmful lies about consequences of abortion that don’t exist and have not been scientifically proven. They’ve ruled that Texas can enforce its forced trans-vaginal sonogram bill while it’s being challenged in court. (A similar law is being challenged in Oklahoma, but that state has not been allowed to enforce it while it winds its way through the court system.)

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February 13, 2009 12:58 PM
Antiabortion Fanatics' New Invasive Attack: The Forced Ultrasound

You have to give members of the religious right credit for one thing: No matter how resoundingly voters whack them into oblivion, they come right back fighting. To clarify, I'm not talking about average, conservative, pro-life voters. I'm talking about fanatics and activists.

Exhibit A:

"LINCOLN, Neb. (AP)--Abortion foes have a new tactic: The hope that women can't look away.

Lawmakers in 11 states are considering bills that would offer or require ultrasounds before a woman gets an abortion. The most stringent are proposed laws in Nebraska, Indiana and Texas, which would require a doctor show the ultrasound image of the fetus to the woman, despite legal challenges to a similar measure in Oklahoma.

A similar bill was proposed in Wyoming but it was defeated in a state House committee before reaching the floor."

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Many women are upset because by most definitions, forcing a woman to have something put inside her vagina against her will and for no reason is, uh, rape. But Republicans state legislators don't see what the fuss is about. After all, those sluts already consented to be penetrated— when they got pregnant. Are you fucking kidding me?

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Slate's Dahlia Litwick unloads on SB484, explaining that lawmakers behind the legislation don't see what the big fucking deal is with forcing women to be penetrated by doctor as a prerequisite for pregnancy termination. After all, they consented to have sex, right? And isn't consenting to have sex once akin to consenting to have whatthefuckever put into your vagina? That's a jaw-droppingly insensitive and dangerous statement, but more than one Virginia delegate has actually said something to that effect.

Delegate Kathy J. Byron, for example, said "if we want to talk about invasiveness, there's nothing more invasive than the procedure that she is about to have." As Litwick points out, reading between the lines leads us to believe that Byron thinks that abortion involves inserting things into a woman's vagina and a woman is consenting to an abortion, she must therefore be consenting to have a doctor put any old thing into her vagina. An ultrasound wand. A Wii controller. A stethoscope!

During the floor debate on Tuesday, Del. C. Todd Gilbert announced that "in the vast majority of these cases, these [abortions] are matters of lifestyle convenience." Virginia Democrat Del. David Englin, who opposes the bill, has said Gilbert's statement "is in line with previous Republican comments on the issue," recalling one conversation with a GOP lawmaker who told him that women had already made the decision to be "vaginally penetrated when they got pregnant."Oh, man, I could go on all DAY, I'm so sickened by this. It's a new low in women's rights to their own bodies; these maniacs go too far!

Okay, I'll shut up now. :o(