Once Again, Scalzi Proves He's a Mensch

He's given a doctor friend his platform for an anonymous guest post on one of the current big women's health issues.

Fellow physicians, once again we are being used as tools to screw people over. This time, it’s the politicians who want to use us to implement their morally reprehensible legislation. They want to use our ultrasound machines to invade women’s bodies, and they want our hands to be at the controls. Coerced and invaded women, you have a problem with that? Blame us evil doctors. We are such deliciously silent scapegoats.

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Comments

[Janet]

Hmm, this is exactly how I feel about pap smears to acquire birth control. "Poor acoustic window",.. positively awesome. I want a doctor just like this one. One who understands that I have boundaries, and also has a fucking sense of humor. Although I must say that the t-v ultrasound was a hell of a lot more comfortable than being told to hold my bladder to near-bursting for the abdominal one. Kidneys on fire, man. Can't a pregnant woman have a piss around here? No? Okay, then howsabout I punch a hole in your wall?

[jessa]

Reminds me of the adage, "surgery without consent is assault." Since medical ethics are partially legislated and penetration without consent is rape, someone is going to have to change a bunch of other laws to make these non-consensual ultrasounds actually legal.

[Geds]

I think this is one of those thing where people who have good intentions (for a variety of "good intentions" that you and I both understand, but that people who didn't go through Evangelical Christianity just plain wouldn't) but bad information. I'm thinking of doing a post or a series on exactly this: the misconceptions of the universe encouraged by Christianity.

So the good intention is to "stop abortions." The reason behind that is to avoid killing babies. The methodology is to show people that they don't have a "fetus" but a "baby." How do you do that? Sonogram! Sonograms, meanwhile, for most people, are those things where the doctor rubs some goop on a woman's belly and runs the thing over it. Trans-vaginal ultrsounds aren't in the vocab.

Of course now they are, so anyone with a "good intentions, bad information" excuse doesn't have that excuse. Anyone who keeps on keepin' on only has disingenuous arguments and slut-shaming. But, at least, at first it's possible to argue that they just didn't know.

Now, the people who are trying to get laws in place to publish the names and addresses of women who have abortions...they're awful people, full stop. There is no possible justification for that and it's a massive, abhorrent face-value violation of HIPAA. Not to mention human decency.