Letter to the Editor about Proposed Nebraska Legislation

A state legislator in Nebraska proposed a new law that would require abortion doctors to show patients an ultrasound of the fetus an hour before performing an abortion. Of course, the local Planned Parenthood representative was quoted as saying "This is an unacceptable interference". The following is my letter to the editor printed in response:

No matter what side of the abortion debate you fall on, I see no reason why a woman considering an abortion should not be properly informed about the procedure and what's in her body. Both the bills mentioned in Thursday's paper (LB 675 and 676) aim to do just that. Yet even this is "unacceptable interference" according to some critics.

And it would be "unacceptable", especially if you've been telling mothers that what's in their bodies is just a "blob of tissue". Just a blob of tissue, and not a being having all its organs and systems in place by the eighth week of pregnancy. Just a blob, and not something that looks, and moves, like a human being. Just unwanted tissue (think of a tumor), and not something with its own heartbeat.

No, no, this is an unacceptable interference. After all, ignorance is bliss.