Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell signed a firestorm of a bill on March 7 that would require women in Virginia to undergo a trans-vaginal or abdominal ultrasound in order to have an abortion. According to CBS News, “some” women can reject the trans-vaginal procedure, which is an extremely intrusive procedure involving the insertion of a device into the body. “Some” women may opt for the abdominal ultrasound, which renders less information and detail.

The Players

The bill’s national perpetrators are Americans United for Life (AUL). According to Huffington Post, this anti-abortion group wrote a model ultrasound bill and has heavily lobbied state legislatures to implement it. Virginia Republicans and legislators from eight other states are said to have based their legislation on this model bill. This group is managing to get some state legislatures to go for the most draconian anti abortion laws since the Roe V. Wade decision.

Mother Jones reports that AUL has quietly pushed even more extremist state legislation that would give protections to those who kill abortion providers, using the excuse that they are “in the defense of an unborn child”. 

Kathy Byron (R-Lynchburg) is prominently associated with the Virginia ultrasound bill, and has a history of anti abortion and other medical legislation. In 2011, she orchestrated tighter regulation on abortion clinics and sponsored a bill that would eliminate a requirement for girls to have the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine. 

According to The News Advance.com, Byron said that the bill would help women “…to know all the available medical and legal information surrounding the abortion decision before giving legally effective informed consent.”

While Byron was claiming that the bill was a “victory for women”, she seemed oblivious to the consequences, including a poll showing that 55 percent of Virginians oppose the legislation while only 36 percent support it, and a 1,000 person demonstration outside of the state capitol. She also found her HPV bill shut down in the state Senate.

The Opposition

Opponents have been successful in meeting several goals: Intense backlash has forced Virginia’s government to back down on the mandatory intrusive trans-vaginal procedure and to make the external procedure optional.

Opponents popularized the concepts of “government sponsored rape” and a “war on women”. The opponents were also successful in pointing out that, for a party that is extremist in its anti-government intrusion ideology, the Republican Virginia ultrasound bill is one of the most physically intrusive government power grabs in American history.

As a result, women and men have become more energized to fight the trend toward extremist laws than in a long time.

The AUL has been the perpetrator of some of the most extremist anti abortion and anti women’s rights legislation in decades. Several state level Republican politicians have acted to implement AUL’s boilerplate legislation and heavy lobbying, introducing and passing bills that are not being well received by their constituents or by the nation as a whole. 

The issues of criminalizing a legal medical procedure, justifying extreme government intrusion and even justifying killing are troubling enough, but the far more troubling issue is how an unelected and private legal entity can have such influence on State legislators and on legislation.

The end is nowhere near, because the opponents of such legislation are just now becoming aware of closed door dealings, unpublicized legislation and the magnitude of the AUL’s inflluence. Many Americans will be gearing up for election season and for court challenges to the constitutionality of such legislation at the state level.