Virginia, Stay Out of My Vagina

I’m trying to stay calm. Just when you think the politicization of female reproductive choice can’t get any worse, the state legislature of Virginia has proposed a new law requiring doctors to perform a trans-vaginal probe ultrasound for any woman seeking to have an abortion, and to report to her the status of the fetus prior to moving ahead with the abortion procedure. It is expected that if passed by the legislature Republican Governor Bob McDonnell will sign the bill into law.

Fortunately, the reaction against the bill has been fierce, and the bill’s passage has been delayed, at least for now.

Virginia’s conservatives have been emboldened by similar laws in Texas and Idaho also requiring trans-vaginal ultrasound before one can proceed with an abortion. As this article suggests, this type of legislation, including proposed laws granting ‘personhood’ at the moment of conception, are making their way across conservative-dominated state legislatures.

These lawmakers directly proclaim that branding a woman with a crimson capital “A” is not enough public shaming when that woman seeks to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. One Virginia legislator went on to say that because a woman seeking an abortion has already been “trans-vaginally penetrated” in order for her to become pregnant, further transgression by a vibrator-shaped medical contraption should be no big deal.

This proposed law also makes her doctor complicit in an unnecessary medical procedure in order to remind a woman seeking an abortion of her errant ways. Because Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land, the new law would, for both doctor and patient, be unconstitutional and illegal. The pre-abortion procedure could be constituted as medical rape, should the law be approved and if we got that far into contesting it. It means that the vaginas of the ‘penetrated’ — women who engage in sex before marriage, married women and mothers — have less value than virgin vaginas. That penetration may not only include a penis, but a tampon. What this also means is war. Cases going up against these laws going all the way up to the Supreme Court? Bet on it.

As we have been discussing since Neptune ingressed Pisces earlier this month, we have witnessed the repressive and misogynistic agenda of the right wing, as well as other conservative maneuvering in light of President Obama’s announcement that contraception be provided by employers through their health insurance — which is, by the way, already in practice and has been so for years — and now, according to the President, without a co-pay. In response and right on cue for the general election campaign of 2012, the American Taliban — the pro-life Christian right led by Sarah Palin, the Tea Party and Catholic bishops — have issued their version of a fatwah on women’s reproductive rights.

We keep talking here about Neptune moving into Pisces along with Chiron and Pallas as a very big deal. It is. As Zane Stein said in Eric’s email this morning:

Many of you who read this may remember the last time Chiron was in Pisces (although as the old joke goes, “If you can remember the Sixties you weren’t there”). It passed through Pisces to teach us many things, but its method was to help us heal our wounds by first polarizing society so we could see just how far from whole we really were. Even if you don’t remember the Sixties you probably have read of all the ways we were pulled into two different directions. So add this to the mix, and you can easily see the polarization, which has already begun, intensifying as a result of the lunation.

Then there is Pallas. She doesn’t start fights, but if she feels a battle has begun she fights to defend her people. She also is quite adept at mapping out plans, perceiving patterns. Her part in this lunation, I fear, is to stir people to clearly draw out the battle lines.

The potential energy of this lunation is unbelievable. Pallas/Chiron can enable us to fight against anything that is blocking us from trying to heal our wounds, and linked with Neptune enable us to see a much, much larger picture than we even dreamt possible. But there will be so many, many temptations to follow other pathways…false paths that lead nowhere, false gurus that are full of lies, drugs that promise enlightenment.

That’s it. I am through. Perhaps, as Zane puts it, I need to be mindful of the bigger picture. But bigger, more powerful women and men are going to have to go up against these witch burners in legislative clothing. They can draw the battle line. As for me, I AM the battle line, and I am done. The pro-choice movement has been far too kind, polite and apologetic with these reproductive Torquemadas and their quest for dominion over my vagina — my self — as well as the selves of American women. Our lives and our personhoods are at stake.

I don’t have it in me to be nice. Not after how far we’ve come. I say, let’s throw it back in their faces: put the call out to developers in blue states to design and build ‘abortion malls’ which not only will provide the service free of charge and with no hassle, but also offer contraception drugstores, post-procedure massage parlors and counseling, mani-pedis, a same-sex marriage chapel, a medical pot dispensary, and free office space for anti-death penalty advocacy organizations. In other words, throw their fucking medieval philosophies along with their medical trans-vaginal torture devices out the window and and shove their women-hating culture war up where the sun don’t shine.

In the Sixties, we used to say to the oppressive establishment “Up Yours!” I’d like to add a new phrase to that genre as a special message to the Virginia legislature, one coined by my precious Filipino mama when she was outraged. It’s ukininam. It means, up your MAMA’s pussy. Until this war of the states versus our beautiful sexy vaginas is over, until they get over their need to try to control women’s self-determination of what our sexual lives should be, and until Neptune dissolves their bullshit into the porcine methane gas that it is, be ready for our cannons of awareness to start firing.

It’s on.

18 thoughts on “Virginia, Stay Out of My Vagina”

  1. Thanks, Fe. I shall be careful if I choose to use this curse word. Thanks for adding to my multi-lingual cursing vocabulary.

    Several years ago, I became annoyed with the infamous “C-word” and all its baggage, including as an acronym “can’t understand normal thinking.” My retaliation was to coin a new, unisex word: WUNT, as in “won’t understand normal thinking.”

    Both words can lead to pondering what difference there may be between intentional ignorance and willful stupidity. Given the current state of affairs, it’s difficult not just to ponder a difference, but also try and grasp how a single person could both at the same time about the same issues.

    JannKinz

  2. Fe – thanks for clarifying that! A serious cuss word indeed.

    I knew Tagalog is widely spoken, but I was just trying to make a semi-educated guess. Always trying to increase my ethnic and linguistic knowledge… 🙂

  3. Brendan:

    The answer is “so to speak”. It’s Ilocano, another major dialect of the Philippines.

    The emphasis on the NAM highlights “your mama”, so it’s clear that they not only are dissing you, but your generation before you.

    It’s a serious cuss word.

  4. Amanda:

    No need to send the link. I thought if this was on FB, I could contribute to the dialogue, which I see is quite stimulating.

    If I sounded a little rough around the edges, remember I have Mars-Aries in the first house, so I am a “skunk thrower”, a term we use in the design, engineering and construction world to define “throwing the problem out there to see what facets and solutions we can make out of it”. We are in agreement, BTW.

    And our focus should be on how to quell the opposition without alienating the rest of us. For as long as our opponents have the power, they can use it to continue to terrorize. I am not a politician or anywhere near Rachel Maddow’s status or visibility. I am one of several million women in the line of fire.

  5. fe —

    the FB thread is not connected to your article at all.

    that is a conversation from my friend jen’s page, which stemmed from her original questions about the bill in her status update. that’s why i left off people’s last names when i posted the thread here — FB is a weird mix of semi-private and public, and my point was to get info into the discussion here as it was written, not to open up a friend and her friends (whom i don’t know) to a debate in a forum they had not entered into themselves, even though i consider PW to be a pretty friendly place.

    so, if you still want to see the FB thread, email me privately please.

    and yes, like i said — this legislation, and the whole movement on the right, is all about terrorizing women. i just don’t want us to terrorize women in a different way, by making TVUS sound any more invasive than a pap smear. the point is the attempt by the right to shame women, not doctors using a method of diagnostics to ensure the status and health of a pregnancy.

  6. “The text of the bill is here (italicized portion): http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?121+ful+HB261 But look, if it’s medically necessary or in fact advisable, I don’t think any of us who’ve been raging against it have a problem with that – it’s the idea of a penetration which exists solely for the purpose of “making the woman face the truth” at the behest of (my!) lawmakers, which is what this seems to intend, that is making us angry. I’d be as outraged if it were any other internal procedure, many of which are necessary and even wonderful tools. (When properly warmed.) But also, you know, not familiar with the ins and outs. We laypeople do what we can, you know?

    Of course, for many of these lawmakers, that bill is irrelevant anyway – they’re also voting for the personhood bill.”

    Amanda:

    Thanks for the arguments, which are important. I’m in the Emily camp. The point is “medically necessary” versus a means to coerce a woman to understand the gravity of the situation. As having had an abortion, and understanding the risks, and knowing what other women who have had abortions have felt, we have and do understand the gravity of the situation.

  7. ok, here’s that FB conversation i was just talking about. believe me, i am not saying we shouldn’t speak up about this draconian legislation — i just think we need to speak up in a way that addresses the actual problem:

    *****

    Jen:
    Where can I get some actual, balanced information about the pre-abortion ultrasound laws that doesn’t come from a strident place of a) complete anti-abortion rhetoric or b) complete anti-ultrasound rhetoric?

    I find both positions equally insulting, as a vehemently pro-choice nurse who ALSO doesn’t think every doc and midwife I work with is a rapist for performing transvaginal ultrasound for accurate pregnancy dating before an abortion.

    Lissy:
    I’ve struggled with this too (as you might imagine). Here’s what I’ve come up with: while there are no (as far as I have found) consensus guidelines on U/S pre-abortion, most providers in this country (and all PP affiliates, I believe) recommend one for dating purposes. Less than 13 wks will nearly automatically mean TVUS. The issue here is that there are essentially no other medical entities that are controlled as carefully by the government as those in family planning; while it may be increasingly considered “good practice” to perform an US doesn’t mean that the govt’ needs to make a law about it – it’s also good practice to get an EKG before doing a cardiac cath, but you don’t see lawmakers rushing to make a law about that.

    Lissy:
    I appreciate the movement’s need to prevent any slide down the anti-choice slippery slope, and I believe this is where it comes from. It’s unfortunate that as a movement we’re not in a position to be able to pick our battles – it’s too important to give any piece of our freedom away.

    Jessica:
    I couldn’t agree more – I’m not a medical professional, but I have been pregnant enough times to be (ahem) intimately familiar with the dildocam and what, medically, it’s used for. Watching the pro-choice movement attack a legal, safe, science-based medical tool is giving me bad flashbacks to the right-wing’s attacks on “partial-birth abortion” in the 90s (which were nearly all based on a similar rhetoric of “this medical procedure I just learned about is icky!”)

    And frankly, if you think a transvaginal US is invasive…you REALLY don’t want to know how the OB is going to get the fetus out…crass, I know, but COME ON LEFT WING YOU ARE MISSING THE FUCKING POINT.

    Jen:
    I can’t imagine a case in which it *wouldn’t* be a good idea to perform an ultrasound. Would you want to take a 6 week demise to the OR for a D&C? Of course not. Would you want to offer a medical abortion to someone who’s — surprise! — 18 weeks? Of course not. How else are you expected to confirm a live IUP and the appropriate method for performing the abortion when a woman has irregular menses or can’t confidently state a sure normal LMP?

    Lissy:
    I think it’s also important to note that the pro-choice movement is not attacking the providers; they have carefully constructed the argument to be about lawmakers, who are never in the clinic and are not responsible for making clinical judgements, yet when it comes to abortion always seem to be doing just that…

    Lissy:
    well, the purists would say bimanual exam (I asked the same question Jen!), if you have a non-obese patient with certain LMP and no symptoms. That said, physical exam is a lost art, and no MD of my generation would do a procedure without an US. The issue is probably not telling 18 wks from 6, but 6 wks from brewing ectopic.

    Jen:
    Thanks for weighing in, Lissy. You’re my friend list expert on family planning! What got me all riled up about this issue this morning was listening to a journalist from Slate, representing the pro-choice/anti-ultrasound-pre-abortion movement, describe all TVUS as being sexually penetrated with an object. That kind of overstatement does NO ONE any favors.

    Gineane:
    I thought the point wasn’t the TVUS but the fact that they are “forcing” a woman to see fetal heartbeat on the monitor? Somehow combining the two equals rape? Oookay…?

    Lissy:
    100% agree. The argument is dirty (and makes me feel dirty for questioning it). @Gineane – the law actually says that the provider has to offer to show the picture, and offer the pt to hear the heartbeat, no forced listening in this particular bill.

    Emily: The text of the bill is here (italicized portion): http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?121+ful+HB261 But look, if it’s medically necessary or in fact advisable, I don’t think any of us who’ve been raging against it have a problem with that – it’s the idea of a penetration which exists solely for the purpose of “making the woman face the truth” at the behest of (my!) lawmakers, which is what this seems to intend, that is making us angry. I’d be as outraged if it were any other internal procedure, many of which are necessary and even wonderful tools. (When properly warmed.) But also, you know, not familiar with the ins and outs. We laypeople do what we can, you know?

    Of course, for many of these lawmakers, that bill is irrelevant anyway – they’re also voting for the personhood bill.

  8. hi —

    i feel compelled to weigh in here — the trans-vaginal ultrasound is *not* the problem here. it is a standard medical procedure for determining how far along a pregnancy is, whether pre-abortion or for a woman who plans to deliver. think about it: if you were going to have an abortion, wouldn’t you want to know — and more importantly, want *your doctor* to know how far along the fetus is, so that the proper procedure could be used?

    TVUS is not rape. what is outrageous here is that right-wing lawmakers are trying to legislate medical procedures, and that they are trying to do so to force women to “see” their fetus in an effort to shame and guilt them into choosing against their own interests.

    this problem with the rallying cry of the left right now was brought t my attention by a friend who is the most compassionate, ethical, left-leaning OB/GYN nurse i know.

    i’m going to post the conversation from her FB page on this in a minute. i really think those of us who care about women’s rights and health need to be careful not to stray into the right’s game of inflammatory hysteria, but rather, need to focus on the things that are the problem (insane legislation), rather than freaking women out about normal medical diagnostics.

    beyond that, yes — this issue is important!

  9. GaryB:

    That is indeed so about the Virginia legislature. I have a hard time understanding women in those positions who take on the harness and then yoke other women with it.

    You and I are on the same page about Elizabeth Warren. She needs to win MA Senate and then run for Pres. I would work for her in a heartbeat!

  10. Fe,

    Wasn’t this Virginia bill sponsored by a female Repugnant representative? Where are the women in these assaults on women’s long earned rights? If we are going to make the shift from a patriarchal period to one of balance then it is time for women to take a place of power and make themselves heard. Maybe a run by Elizabeth Warren in 2016 would be a great tip of the teeter totter!

  11. Brendan:

    Appreciate the support for all of us vaginal-Americans. We need political pressure on those goons as well as a wild sense of humor, as the last link leading to the article about Vermont suggests.

  12. Fe – I like your suggestion re Issa, in fact I’m willing to help give him one. May I suggest no anesthetic for the colonoscopy? It’s much less fun that way, and we all know he’s about the fun, no? As to Virginia, are they trying to live up to the “Virgin Queen” the state was named for?

    This war sickens me. It is not enough to know “we” are in the right under the law, but it is also galling to see so many voices actively seeking a return to the 18th century, more so when so much of the country is actually opposed to any such regression.

    The sanctimony stinks, mostly because the theology and ideology behind it is rotten to the core.

    This brethren is with his mother, his familial sisters and nieces, and the sisterhood of the PW family on this.

  13. The more we speak up, the more they back down. These people are bullies and cowards.

    I personally want to see California Congressman Darrell Issa, the lead Congressman holding hearings on women’s contraceptive rights versus the freedom of religion with no women on the panel — only men — two of which were Catholic priests, to submit to similar, equal testing.

    How about a colonoscopy in advance of a prostate exam?

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