Health or Shame?

                         Rachel Farris recently posted a commentary in her blog 'Mean Rachel' entitled The Texas Shame Act. In this article, she responds to the recent enforcement of a law popularly called the Texas sonogram law. This controversial law requires physicians to provide a sonogram before performing an abortion. A woman seeking an abortion can choose whether to view the sonogram images and whether to hear the fetal heartbeat. She also is required to hear the medical explanation of the sonogram at least 24 hours before the procedure. Her commentary is most likely written towards other Democrats, and women who disagree with the sonogram law. For a law that has the potential to affect such a wide audience (any woman who MAY become pregnant at some point), one needs little more credibility than being a woman to have a strongly opinionated voice on this matter. Farris argues that this law serves no medical purpose, and that the only purpose it serves is to shame and humiliate women who have made a very difficult decision to have an abortion. She additionally comments on the recent 'Doonesbury' comic strip that was recently published in response to the Texas sonogram law. She disagrees with the decision of numerous newspapers to either display the comic strip in the Opinions section, or to exclude the strip all together. Farris states that if the law is "truly a plight to keep women safe, then why can't I read about it while I gulp down OJ and Cheerios?" This is great use of logic on her part; it is clear that women's health is indeed NOT the aim of this law. She deploys further evidence of the unjustifiable nature of the removal of the comic strip by comparing it to another popular comic strip 'Ziggy'. This strip also takes aim merely at women's health, but yet somehow escapes ridicule and controversy. Could this be because the Texas sonogram law is in fact not aimed at women's health whatsoever? Farris' point exactly.