Texas legislature passes sonograms-before-abortions bill

At this point in the flood of anti-choice legislation from various GOP-dominated states, all I feel like doing is grumbling in exasperation:

HOUSTON — In a victory for anti-abortion advocates, Texas will join the ranks of states that require doctors to perform a sonogram before conducting an abortion.

Gov. Rick Perry, a conservative Republican, made the bill, which the Legislature passed on Thursday, a priority and is expected to sign it. The bill requires a doctor to conduct a sonogram at least 24 hours before an abortion and to give the woman the opportunity to see the results and hear the heartbeat of the fetus. Though the woman can choose not to view the images and hear the heartbeat, the doctor must describe what the sonogram shows, including the existence of legs, arms and internal organs.

[…]

Because the measures passed both houses of the Legislature with a two-thirds majority, it will go into effect as soon as the governor signs it.

Of course, anti-choicers like to claim that bills like this one, which have been cropping up in various other states over the past few months, are really all about “informed consent” and giving abortion-seeking women “more information”. As if a woman who learns she is pregnant, realizes she is unable to take care of the future child, and then accepts that she must terminate her pregnancy, didn’t fucking know everything she could possibly know about her situation before making such a monumental decision.

But what’s even more galling than this condescending attitude is their blatant dishonesty. It’s beyond clear that none of these bills have anything to do with providing “more information” to these poor women. All they are is weapons fashioned by the Republican Party in its ongoing ideological war against women’s freedom of choice over their own bodies. It’s absolutely nothing more or less. And it’s only doubly insulting to rational people that they think we could fall for their transparent lies.

As PersonalFailure put it well, anti-abortionists really do think that pregnant women – and, I’ll add, pro-choicers in general – are fucking idiots.

(via Joe. My. God.)