SONOGRAM LAW: Texas Women Controlled by Anti-Abortionists

pstern

16:41 on 6 February 2012

The Texas Legislature has determined that women have no rights when it comes to dealing with their own bodies and beliefs.  The irrational and illegal sonogram bill has been upheld by the court system.  In other words, the legal system has acted illegally against Texas women and everybody knows it.


The Austin American-Statesman reported:

U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks today dismissed a lawsuit seeking to stop Texas from enforcing its new pre-abortion sonogram law.

Sparks wrote that he remained convinced that the law violates the U.S. Constitution by infringing on doctor’s free speech rights and by impairing the exercise of their medical judgment.

But Sparks added that his hands were tied by a higher-court decision, issued last month by a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, that expressly found the sonogram requirement to be constitutionally sound and a reasonable regulation of medicine.

The appeals court decision overturned Sparks’ earlier ruling that banned Texas from enforcing the law as unconstitutional.

In Monday’s order dismissing the lawsuit brought on behalf of abortion providers, however, Sparks wrote that he continues to believe that the Texas law is not a reasonable regulation of medicine.

“This court believes Texas overstepped its legitimate authority when it substituted its medical judgment for that of doctors, and imposed a uniform method of treatment for all patients, rather than allowing physicians to make medically appropriate, case-by-case determinations,” Sparks wrote.

“The act requires doctors to attempt to discourage their patients from obtaining abortions, in a variety of ways, even in cases where the doctors have determined that an abortion is, for any number of reasons, the best medical option,” he said in his order.

It is unclear what legal recourse Texas women have to eliminate state government from their personal lives; however, it should anger women sufficiently that every one of them contacts their House and Senate Representatives to repeal the sexist and invasive sonogram law from the State law books.

During the past decade of Rick Perry's Fascist rule, more of our Constitutional Rights have been eliminated.  It is time to fight for what is right and the sonogram law is WRONG on many levels:  politically, socially, economically and legally.  The Governor, Legislature and Courts are dead wrong in forcing women do this.

To contact your House of Representative

To contact your Senator