“It was not until the last half of this century that the prying eye of the ultrasound (that is, ultrasound visualization) rendered the once opaque womb transparent, stripping the veil of mystery from the dark inner sanctum, and letting the light of scientific observation fall on the shy and secretive fetus…The sonographic voyeur, spying on the unwary fetus finds him or her a surprisingly active little creature, not at all the passive parasite we had imagined.”
Valerie Hartouni “Containing Women: Reproductive Discourse in the 1980s” Techonocluture, Constance Penley and Andrew Ross, eds. (Minneapolis: U of Minneapolis Press, 1991) 38
Ultrasound at 18 weeks3-D ultrasound in the first trimesterShare on Facebook
Testimony of Steve Calvin, M.D., specialist in maternal – fetal medicine, before the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Federalism, and Property Rights, Senate Judiciary Committee, Hearing on “The 25th Anniversary of Roe vs. Wade: Has It Stood the Test of Time?” January 21st, 1998:
“… At the time of the Roe V Wade decision, ultrasound during pregnancy was largely experimental. During the 70s and 80s the beneficial uses of ultrasound in pregnancy multiplied…
Current ultrasound imaging techniques reveal the marvelous complexity of prenatal growth and development… However, the use of this wonderful window on the womb has become increasingly disconcerting for some who would rather view the fetus as pregnancy tissue or the product of conception.
…
We are clearly in a new era of obstetrics because of ultrasound and the expanding concept of treatment of the fetus as a patient. Yet there is an inescapable schizophrenia when modern medicine works under ethical rules which say that a fetus is a patient only when the mother has conferred the status.”
1st trimester sonogram
Ultrasound has been a powerful pro-life tool. It is not surprising that pro-choice groups have sought to prevent mothers from seeing their unborn babies on ultrasound when they are considering abortions. Read quotes about ultrasounds here.
A Michigan law requiring abortion providers to ask women if they want to see the ultrasound before they consented to abortions was proposed. The women would not be forced to see the ultrasound. This law mandated that abortion providers perform an ultrasound for their patients. In many ways, this is a safety issue, for the only way to know for sure how far along a woman is is to do an ultrasound. Also, an ultrasound is the only way to make sure a woman does not have an ectopic (tubal) pregnancy. Most clinics, including Planned Parenthood clinics, routinely do ultrasounds before abortions.
But clinics didn’t want women to have a chance to see their unborn baby. According
REBEKAH WARREN of Lansing-based abortion rights group MARAL Pro-Choice, gave NARAL’s position:
“…requiring a doctor to ask a patient if she’d like to see an ultrasound in proximity to an abortion is a move Warren has described as “emotionally manipulative.”…
So is it emotionally manipulative to allow a woman the CHOICE to look at information that might let her make a more informed decision? Keep in mind that the woman would not be forced to view anything.
Abortion clinics also said that a woman would have to pay for the ultrasound out of her own pocket, and therefore it was a burden on women. They could, of course, offer to do an ultrasound for free…but abortion clinics don’t do ANYTHING for free.
If the woman wanted to save money, she could go to a crisis pregnancy center where she could get an ultrasound for free. According to Warren:
“One of the biggest changes in this legislation is putting a list of places women can get free ultrasounds on the state Web site,” Warren says. Typically, an ultrasound costs between $300 and $700, depending on the stage of the pregnancy.
Some of clinics that offer free ultrasounds, Warren says, are geared toward influencing women against abortion.
“We would rather not have that on the state Web site…”
10 week ultrasound
So the pro-choice group doesn’t want the woman to go to a place where she will be able to see her ultrasound and, quite possibly, learn more information that might sway her abortion decision. They don’t want anything to interfere with their profits. Is this pro-woman?
Ultrasound technician Shari Richard describes how effective ultrasounds are in changing the minds of women considering abortion.
“In my own career as an ultrasound technician, I’ve been told to turn the ultrasound monitor away from pregnant women so that they wouldn’t decide against an abortion (I refused). That’s because 90% of women change their minds about having abortions after viewing their babies via sonogram.”
She goes on to tell the following story:
“For 10 years I have been an ultrasongrapher and I have witnessed the development of pre-born children. I am convinced that if every mother could see her baby on ultrasound, the abortion argument would be over. A look through the window reveals the true victim of abortion. This is why ultrasound images are often censored, for example…
In 1990, I testified on fetal development before the House and Senate committee considering the “Freedom of Choice Act.” I brought an ultrasound videotape of fully formed fetuses as young as eight weeks after conception. Representative Don Edwards (D – CA) tried to prevent me from showing the videotape.”
Shari Richard “Now Wombs Have Windows” All about Issues vol 5 # 2
As the nurse practitioner prepared me for an ultrasound, she asked if I was thinking about terminating the pregnancy. I told her I was, so she turned the ultrasound screen away from me, and began moving the wand over my stomach.
It turned out that the author was 24 weeks along, too far for an abortion (in her area-some clinics DO perform them after 24 weeks) This article is evidence that some healthy women have late term abortions because they don’t know they are pregnant sooner.
In an article in the Tablet, a former abortionist discusses the new ultrasound technology he pioneered and describes the powerful effect viewing ultrasound images have on parents who are seeing their unborn babies for the first time.
He published a book which contains many of the images. But a pro-abortion group has protested:
“It is reprehensible and morally repugnant to use these distorted images to influence women who are making such an important decision on whether or not to go ahead with a pregnancy”
Anne Weyman, chief executive of the Family Planning Association
“The hidden wonder of new life” The Tablet July 10, 2004
Weyman does not explain how images of the unborn baby inside the mother could be “distorted.” She also does not seem to think that women deserve to have all the facts about an invasive operation that can never be undone. Most pro-lifers are familiar with the stories of women who were lied to by abortion clinic workers and later regretted aborting.
8 week ultrasound. many abortion advocates believe women should not be shown images like this before having abortions
“If the patient ever saw the ultrasound, they could see a baby. It would be sucking its thumb, most of the time, or moving its hands, or whatever, and it was a very cute thing to see, on the ultrasound. And so, as a rule, Dr. Tucker would always tell us to keep that screen turned away from the patient and never let them see it. So I just took it on myself to start showing them the pictures, and most everyone I showed the picture got up and walked out, and changed her mind. I did that for a good while. But basically, Dr. Tucker never found out I did that. He started noticing that I was having a lot of people change their mind, and he questioned me, why are they changing their mind? I would tell him I didn’t know.”
Rachel M MacNair, PhD. Achieving Peace in the Abortion War (New York: iUniverse, 2009)136
“A lot of it is the politics around ultrasound, I think. That, I mean, maybe that’s why some of the abortion stuff is changed, that now you can see that it’s a fetus and it looks like a baby, and it sucks his thumb, and it, you know kicks around, just like newborns do… And so it’s like we can personify the fetus as opposed to, like, relating to this woman.”
Wendy Simonds. Abortion at Work: Ideology and Practice in a Feminist Clinic (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1996) 79
Former abortionist Professor Stuart Campbell on how parents react when they see the high quality ultrasounds which he pioneered:
“They are overwhelmed. Husbands kiss their wives’ abdomens. They actually start talking to the baby for the first time. They can recognize the features, see who the baby looks like, but it’s not just that, it’s also the baby’s behaviour: you see eyelids opening, opening its mouth, sucking its thumb, doing baby-like things.?… Parents come to me and they are so astonished by what they see…Most of them have no idea about the life inside the uterus, what the placenta does, what the yolk sac is for, about the growth and development of the baby. When you look at the pregnancy books, they tell you about lifestyle, smoking, what to eat, what not to eat, sex, all that stuff, but not so much about the foetus. In this book I’ve tried to be realistic about that.”
22-24 weeks
The ultrasound technology was instrumental in Campbell’s decision to quit doing abortions. He remains pro-choice for early abortions, but opposes them after 20 weeks.
