University of South Florida
Professor, Diane Price Herndl, recently made the following statement as part of
a speech at a “Roe on the Rocks” event sponsored by the ACLU:
“We require in various states to
do trans-vaginal ultrasounds before abortion, which by every state law, the
involuntary introduction of an object into a woman’s vagina is rape, so in
certain states we are requiring physicians to rape their patients.”
The inane irrationality here
would be laughable if people like Professor Herndl weren’t absolutely
serious. So abortion, which is, at
minimum, by any definition, the killing
of a human being in formation, is okay, but getting women to have an ultrasound
prior to having an abortion is wrong?
Because it’s “rape?” The analogy
doesn’t work because rape, by definition, means the woman said no. Here, the woman must give her permission.
Of course, Professor Herndl is
the English Department and teaches classes on feminist this and that, so neither
sound logic nor rationality is required from her standpoint. The woman doesn’t have to get the
trans-vaginal ultrasound, Professor, if she doesn’t want to do so. It’s not involuntary, it’s part of the process
of getting an abortion in states which require it. The woman will be told this before she gets
the abortion. It’s not like she shows up
at the abortion clinic and the doctors there immediately handcuff her and tell
her she’s going to be forced to have this ultrasound no matter what. The woman, kicking and screaming yells, NO,
NO, NO but the doctors do it anyway. If
she doesn’t want the ultrasound, the doctors won’t do it, of course, but she
won’t be allowed to get the abortion.
I guess in the twisted logic of
uber-feminist abortion lovers like Professor Herndl since the woman has to
undergo the procedure to be allowed to have the abortion, she doesn’t have a
choice and, therefore, is being “forced” to do it, thus making it involuntary. Of course, ironically, when the woman wakes
up the morning she decides to go to the clinic, no one forces her to wake
up. She dresses and brushes her teeth or
does whatever else she does to get ready to leave to go to the clinic, but no
one makes her do any of those things.
She gets in her car, or gets on a bus, or walks down the street, each
moment doing things without any coercion that will lead her to the clinic where
she will have the abortion. She arrives
at the clinic. No one makes her walk through
the doors. No one forces her to stay at
the clinic once she arrives. She chooses
to allow the physician to penetrate her body with various medical devices in
order to perform the abortion. She is
free to leave at any time, should she choose to do so. The entire process is filled with choices,
which should, presumably, make the pro-choice Professor very happy. Somehow, of course, all these choices are not
enough. Apparently, unfettered and
unrestricted access to abortion on demand is the only “choice” Professor Herndl
accepts as appropriate.
I don’t know the medicine behind
it, but can just about guarantee that you’ll find people on both sides arguing
about the efficacy, medical need, and risks of this ultrasound procedure. Some will argue it results in fewer
abortions, others will say it doesn’t really impact whether women get
abortions. My guess would be that if a
woman has gone that far, she is probably most likely to get the abortion, with
few actually changing their minds at the final stages. The limited research I did suggested few
women actually change their minds as a result of such ultrasounds. So instead of saying something stupid like
the law forces doctors to rape their patients, why not simply chuckle and point
out the pro-life crowd isn’t really getting much bang for their buck here? That would be the rational argument.
Moreover, there is no reasonable
or rational connection between this procedure and the moral rightness or
wrongness of abortion. Yes, I know in the minds of people like Professor Herndl, anything that potentially limits
the woman’s “choice” is somehow morally improper. But, presumably, even the Professor is
capable of recognizing that this trans-vaginal ultrasound isn’t really a
limitation on the woman’s choice unless, ironically, the woman decides that she doesn’t want an
abortion if she has to undergo the procedure.
Of course, the Professor injects
rape into the discussion for the sole purpose of creating emotional turmoil
about abortion, not because the use of trans-vaginal ultrasounds somehow points
us toward a comprehensible understanding of whether abortion is, or is not,
morally acceptable. The Professor really
doesn’t want to “have a conversation” or “intelligently discuss” or [insert
your own euphemism here] abortion. That
isn’t on her agenda. She simply wants to
make a vulgar and weak analogy about rape in an effort to whip up the faithful
to continue the fight to kill unborn children.
Pro-abortion advocates will say
that when pro-life folks show grotesque pictures of children being torn apart
in utero, this is the same as what Professor Herndl is doing. No.
The consequence of abortion is, in fact, having the in utero child torn
into pieces after being killed. There is
a direct correlation between the moral
wrongness of abortion and such grotesque imagery. No weak analogy is required to make the
point. No intellectual dishonesty
occurs. No effort to whip up emotion
about some secondary issue happens. Such
images go right to the heart of what makes abortion wrong: it is the killing of
a human being.
