Should abortion providers be required to show ultrasounds to women considering abortions?
Anyone seeking elective surgery expects to hear the medical pros and cons and be encouraged to wait before a decision – except with abortions. Only in the last decade have states enacted informed consent laws and other measures to try to make the abortion choice as informed and careful as any other. The next logical step – currently proposed in South Carolina – is requiring ultrasounds at abortion clinics. In a nation allowing “choice,” women deserve to truly understand the choice they are making. Anyone who thinks they shouldn’t is not a true women’s advocate. According to a study in the Journal of Medical Ethics, almost all women (95%) seeking gynecological services wanted to know all the good and bad information about abortion. And pregnant woman cannot have that full information without seeing the internal realities. Abortion clinics already do ultrasounds: they just don’t let the woman see the screen. So why are pro-choice groups so upset at the requirement to let the woman actual
