Blocking the View

Both Florida and Texas have enacted a law that requires any woman seeking an abortion must undergo a sonogram. It's not designed to enhance their medical care; it's designed to persuade them not to have the procedure. In other words, it's purely a political ploy foisted on the doctor and the patient; the state is barging in to impose their belief that the Baby Jesus will cry if they don't have the sonogram.

In Texas, however, a judge has blocked the law, saying that it violates the First Amendment.

Judge Sam Sparks ruled that doctors cannot be penalized if they do not show a woman seeking an abortion the sonogram images, describe those images to her or play the sound of the fetal heart, if the woman declines this information.

In the opinion, according to CRR [Center for Reproductive Rights], he held that “the Act compels physicians to advance an ideological agenda with which they may not agree, regardless of any medical necessity, and irrespective of whether the pregnant women wish to listen.”

The judge also noted that the law places restrictions on women that are not imposed on men, labeling the law as "paternalistic."

As if you needed more evidence that the people behind the idea of "smaller government, more freedom" are all in favor of bigger government and less freedom when it comes to people and things they don't like, there you go.

HT to Digby.