A trans­vagi­nal ultra­sound of a devel­op­ing fetus at 5 weeks, from the Advanced Fer­til­ity Clin­ics of Chicago. The orig­i­nal cap­tion to this image says: “The fetus is too small to be seen this early in preg­nancy”. The black hole is the sac con­tain­ing the devel­op­ing embryo and is 6.25 mm (about 1/​4″) in diam­e­ter, or about the size of a pea.

In pre­vi­ous arti­cles, I’ve dis­cussed how the so-​​called Repub­li­can War on Women got started, how the meme caught fire, and how the Repub­li­can reac­tion to the fight of Chi­nese dis­si­dent Chen Guangcheng crit­i­cizes some of the same behav­iors that Republican-​​controlled state leg­is­la­tors have exhib­ited over the past year.

In par­tic­u­lar, one leg­isla­tive approach that has gained increas­ing pop­u­lar­ity in the last year are laws that man­date an ultra­sound of preg­nant women seek­ing an abor­tion. Before five weeks ges­ta­tion (i.e., about three weeks after the first missed period), abdom­i­nal ultra­sounds are not fea­si­ble. These laws man­date ultra­sounds as early as three weeks ges­ta­tion pur­port­edly to show a woman her child’s “beat­ing heart” (actu­ally a col­lec­tion of rhythmically-​​contracting mus­cle cells that will become a heart in time). Since the only such ultra­sound that can be per­formed at three weeks ges­ta­tion is a trans­vagi­nal ultra­sound, these laws essen­tially require a woman to undergo a med­ically unnec­es­sary inva­sive pro­ce­dure in order to get an abor­tion. North Car­olina, Texas and Okla­homa have the most strin­gent require­ments.
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