Doonesbury ultrasound “rape” cartoon series stirs controversy; newspapers spike
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The last time newspapers spiked leftist Gary Trudeau’s political cartoon series Doonesbury was in 1985 when he parodied the pro-life film documentary, The Silent Scream, which showed an actual abortion. Now that one must have been a hoot.
But Trudeau maintains passing up the transvaginal ultrasound = rape meme “would have been comedy malpractice,” as quoted by UPI. Again, more abortion humor.
The story, from Gawker:
Political comic strip Doonesbury will debut an abortion storyline next week, with a particular focus on the Texas law requiring pregnant women to receive a transvaginal ultrasound and then wait 24 hours before having an abortion.
Some papers will opt not to run the strip due to its explicit and controversial content. The storyline involves a woman going in for an abortion and being sent to the “shaming room” where she’s asked, “Do your parents know you’re a slut?”
I wrote last week that feminists have dug themselves into a hole, because the abortion procedure itself comes a lot closer to rape than a benign transvaginal ultrasound, which Planned Parenthoods do anyway.
Trudeau makes my point. At right is a frame from his series, indicating transvaginal ultrasounds hurt, which they do not, but nevertheless, how can one look at that graphic and not think how much worse the upcoming abortion will hurt?
The storyline for that day’s cartoon, from JimRomenesko.com:
Thursday: In the stirrups, she is telling a nurse that she doesn’t want a transvaginal exam. Doctor says “Sorry miss, you’re first trimester. The male Republicans who run Texas require that all abortion seekers be examined with a 10? shaming wand.” She asks “Will it hurt?” Nurse says, “Well, it’s not comfortable, honey. But Texas feels you should have thought of that.” Doctor says, “By the authority invested in me by the GOP base, I thee rape.”
Furthermore, as one pro-abortion commentator wrote in Slate:
Since most abortions take place in the first trimester of pregnancy, many of these ultrasounds are performed with a transvaginal probe…..
But now that women have heard abortion supporters describe this form of ultrasound as “rape,” will more of them be terrified when they arrive at a clinic and are informed they will have such a procedure? Or might they be scared off altogether? Will abortion clinic staff who perform the ultrasound be seen as “rapists,” as the provider I mentioned earlier worried?
Trudeau clearly feeds the fear.
Other strips from the week do not bode well for the abortion industry to persons who take time to ponder them. For instance, the subliminal message here is that contraceptives fail:
Tuesday: He asks her if this is her first visit to the center, she replies no, that she’s been using the contraceptive services for some time. He says, “I see. Do your parents know you’re a slut?”
And here that the blob tissues is actually a baby:
Friday: Doctor is explaining that the Texas GOP requires her to have an intimate encounter with her fetus. He begins describing it to her. Last panel, he says, “Shall I describe it’s hopes and dreams?” She replies, “If it wants to be the next Rick Perry, I’ve made up my mind.”
And here that there is a profit motives behind abortion services:
Saturday: Back in the reception area, she asks where she goes now for the actual abortion. Receptionist tells her there’s a 24-hour waiting period: “The Republican Party is hoping you get caught in a shame spiral and change your mind.” Last panel: She says, “A final indignity.” Receptionist replies, “Not quite. Here’s your bill.”
Far be it from me to recommend abortion strategy, but I’m not thinking this overall narrative is smart.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
“Doctor says, “By the authority invested in me by the GOP base, I thee rape.”
Does it occur to anyone that women who have actually been raped will find their trauma utterly mocked and trivialized by this stupid, insensitive cartoon? What a jackass Trudeau is!
Let’s hold our breath and wait for Planned Parenthood to announce that they will never again “rape” a woman by giving her an ultrasound prior to her abortion. Let’s wait for the admission that all these years, they have willingly, knowingly, and callously violated untold numbers of women and girls by subjecting them to the shame of a sonogram. Proper medical care? To hell with that! They weren’t really interested in that in the first place.
Anyone know if there’s an easy way to see the silent scream parody? Google just turns up articles referencing it in the context of this controversy. I have to admit, I’m kind of curious all though I know it will be awful.
Dear reality check/proud to be pro-choice/truth shall set you free,
I have removed your comments. You have had your fun.
The rule is
Pick ONE moniker and stick with it.
Thank you.
JDC, I looked for them, too. I don’t think he published that series. According to WashPo:
Q: In 1985, you decided to pull a week of abortion-related strips satirizing the film “The Silent Scream,” which purported to show the reactions of a fetus. So what’s different now? What spurred you to create an abortion narrative in the current political climate?
A: In my 42 years with UPS, the “Silent Scream” week was the only series that the syndicate ever strongly objected to. [Syndicate president Lee Salem] felt that it would be deeply harmful to the feature and that we would lose clients permanently. They had supported me through so much for so long, I felt obliged to go with their call.
This is truly absurd. By this argument Planned Parenthood has been raping women for years.
The CDC describes a Pap test: “The Pap test is recommended for all women, and can be done in a doctor’s office or clinic. During the Pap test, the doctor will use a plastic or metal instrument, called a speculum, to widen your vagina. This helps the doctor examine the vagina and the cervix, and collect a few cells and mucus from the cervix and the area around it. The cells are then placed on a slide or in a bottle of liquid and sent to a laboratory. The laboratory will check to be sure that the cells are normal.”
The National Abortion Federation describes a first trimester surgical abortion: “Cervix is gradually opened with tapered rods. A cannula (straw-like tube), which is attached to a suction apparatus (either an electric machine or hand-held syringe), is inserted through the cervix into the uterus. The contents of the uterus are emptied by suction. Vacuum aspiration is approximately 99% effective.”
The difference, John, is that a woman consents to a Pap test, and the doctor thinks it’s a good idea. Mandating a medical procedure that neither the patient nor the doctor want is government intrusion into health care. The worst kind.
So (again) rape graphics are okay, but not abortion graphics. Can’t handle the truth? Abortion too icky to look at? Very revealing.
This is SICK! There’s a reason they’re called “COMIC strips”…they’re supposed to be COMICAL/FUNNY. What’s FUNNY about abortion???
If GT finds “satire” in this, I think he’s in dire need of a mental evaluation!
Carla:
Thanks for giving Reality a reality check.
well ive never had an abortion but id say that its very close to rape because it is violent. yay for Carla! anyway i wish we could go back to the days of not being political all the time! i agree with Pamela. its a friggin cartoon!
Hal, Planned Parenthood of Virginia mandates these ultrasounds, too, as I’ve written in a couple of posts. Do you think abortion clinics should go ahead with the abortion if a mother refuses the ultrasound they mandate? Do you think it is medically sound to abort without actually knowing the baby’s age and location? It’s ok to abort if you don’t know whether the mother has placenta previa – when the placenta slides down over the cervix – in which case a mother might bleed to death if the placenta is penetrated with a surgical instrument? It’s ok to abort when – whoops – the pregnancy is ectopic and the doctor doesn’t know it because the mother refused an ultrasound?
And what do you think of the mental state of a mother who has a psychological problem with a transvaginal ultrasound? Is that not a red flag to you that she is mentally not prepared to handle an abortion?
VERY good point(s), Jill!
…”10″ shaming wand…” Is he serious? But, instruments like vacuum aspirators, suction machines, etc. used to scrape and suck out the preborn human isn’t shaming at all. Sick.
Hi Jill. I don’t have any problem with medical professionals requiring procedures. I just get uneasy when politicians do it.
Since abortion advocates are so hell-bent on making abortion even more risky that it already is, can they finally stop using “safe, legal, and rare” and just say “legal”? Because obviously there is zero concern for a woman’s actual safety.
Hal, ” I just get uneasy when politicians do it. ”
Don’t worry, Hal, politicians won’t perform ultrasounds. Doctors do!
When I go in a hospital for any procedure, doctors have to tell me what they are going to do, show me what they are going to operate on and give me advice on any potential outcome. On the contrary, for abortions, a life changing experience potentially very risky for the health of the woman and her mental wellbeing, you advocate that doctors should not disclose all the information and tell the patient all the awful possible outcomes of the procedure.
Why?
I am afraid you are buying into Planned Parenthood view. They are afraid that if women see the “blob of tissue” they might decide not to abort and therefore put PP out of business.
Careful Hal. Planned Parenthood is under investigastion for fraud!
What ticks me off is all this talk about how ‘middle aged white males’ make all these rules that are piled upon the poor downtrodden females (rolls eyes), why, if you listened to the left you’d think women never won the right to vote! Those middle aged white men are elected BY THE PEOPLE which includes, plus or minus a % point or two, equal male and female people. ELECTED representatives are just mouth peices for the people who elected them. And unless all those poor repressed liberal women are sitting around bemoaning their lack of voting rights on election day, they are equally responsible for packing the bench with all those middle aged men as the average middle aged man is!
Ultrasound is also useful in determining whether a woman is actually pregnant or not, too. I’ve heard of more than one case of women being charged for abortions when they were in fact not pregnant.
The least a woman can do is find out if she’s killing twins, how far along she is etc. Other than the brief time being viewed on an ultrasound, the only people that will ever see the babies who are aborted are the abortionist and later the pathologist. Heartbreaking to think this is the only touch and acknowledgment they will ever receive. Even death row inmates have the chance to speak before execution, and witnesses to their deaths. The least a mother can do before killing her own child is look at it.
Jespren,
They sure didn’t seem to mind when nine middle aged men decided Roe V Wade, did they.
Moronic Prochoice Quotes, yeah, 9 UNELECTED men no less!
the supreme court gets more and more blood of dead babies on their robes every day!
The crucial difference Hal is that no women is required to get an ultrasound in Texas or Virginia. The law states that if you are going to freely choose (barring coercion that does happen, but a side-issue here) to kill your unborn child, the state is going to regulate the manner in which the procedure will be conducted. It’s not unreasonable because if she did have that kind of ultrasound, it would be followed by two more intrusive instruments anyway. Normally I would take umbrage at a state mandating such a thing, but since an abortion is the only medical procedure designed to take the life of another human being, I can’t find fault in a reasonable measure to protect the life of that child and make sure the abortionist won’t end up taking the women’s life with shoddy procedures. People who support abortion show no such compassion to medical procedures being used against the interests and desires of 600,000+ unborn women every year. You can think that’s a form of hypocrisy, but balancing interests and abstract principles are harder when one party is the target of death. I am in full support of the Constitution’s requirement for habeus corpus, but I do not fault Lincoln for suspending it during the Civil War. I support laws against murder, yet I don’t decry our participation in World War 2.
Jespren hi i hope the pregnancy is going well! i was thinking about you today:)
If this procedure is medically necessary, why did the medical establishment of Virginia oppose it?
“but since an abortion is the only medical procedure designed to take the life of another human being”
The law and the medical establishment view this as a surgical procedure and not “taking the life of another human being” which, in the legal code, ranges from first degree murder to justifiable homicide. Abortion isn’t part of that criminal code.
”People who support abortion show no such compassion to medical procedures being used against the interests and desires of 600,000+ unborn women every year.”
We show compassion to the women whom you think are too stupid to make their own decisions.
A few comments:
* On the main article, the part about the bill is not that “there is a profit motives [sic] behind abortion services” but that the government is not only forcing the woman to have the procedure but also to pay for it.
* Note that there are external ultrasounds that do not require the insertion of a wand that also show pregnancy states
* Chris: It’s unreasonable for the state to force a woman to undergo a medical procedure, regardless of its resemblance to any other medical procedure the woman might choose to do *voluntarily*. The issue here is that the state should not have the right to impose any medical procedure – that should be up to the woman and her doctor.
* Jill: The crucial difference here is that the woman should only have to undergo a medical procedure if it’s medically necessary. A woman objecting to a government-mandated procedure that is not medically necessary is not showing any sort of “psychological problem” by objecting to an invasive test that is unnecessary but is mandated by the government to score political points.
yeah but cc you just keep on believing a lie. i dont know what more to tell you. everyone here has tried!
i mean i know this thing does look funny but when youre pregnant youre more focused on your baby so i just kina roll with whatever. besides in Ohio male obgyns always have a female nurse come in the room before examination begins. the female obgyns do to most of the time. they are very gentle and when it hurts ive never held back in letting them know. so its not rape and once the thing is in id be focused on the baby. its sooooo cool! watching the baby swimming around and they can tell the sex. we women arent wimps. and if you dont want the thing then you can refuse.
CC said: “And as far as “what you heard,” that’s anecdotal and rather moronic.”
CC you are incorrect. The fact that abortion providers have charged for “abortion” procedures on women who were not even pregnant has been reported . Have you watched “Blood Money”?
CC said “We show compassion to the women whom you think are too stupid to make their own decisions. ”
CC you are wrong again. It is exactly because pro-life people value women’s ability to make real decisions that we support the ultrasound laws.
It’s Planned Parenthood that thinks women who come through their doors are intellectually challenged, that’s why they only ask them to trust them blindly and pay the bill.
Think about it!
CC, you may blind yourself all you want, but babies are not fibroids. You can deceive yourself all day long, but in the end, abortion kills a CHILD not a tumor. Methinks you doth protest so much because you know darn well that what you’re saying is a bunch of hooey. Only an idiot would think a baby was a fibroid.
an abortionist doesnt care about you. only your payment. once they scrape ya they move on to the next uterus. you should see how fast Preterm moves. its like a McDonalds dive through. get em in scrape em out move em out. if you have problems get to the hospital or an urgi care. sorry the abortion clinic cant help you post abortion.
CC:
Carol Everett is a woman who used to provide abortion services in Texas. She testified in Congress that she sold abortions to women who were not pregnant, but feared they were.ą For the best medical input on abortion, we recommend you speak with a medical professional who has nothing to gain in your abortion decision.
1 Carol Everett, What I Saw In The Abortion Industry, Jefferson City, MO: Easton Publishing, Inc
PP also double bills for abortions
https://www.jillstanek.com/2011/11/breaking-whistleblower-alleges-texas-planned-parenthood-committed-massive-medicaid-fraud/
Know what’s even more moronic, CC? Telling a lame story about introducing air into your vagina because you might be pregnant. Not only stupid but potentially deadly.
JDC, I looked for them, too. I don’t think he published that series.
It is published in a collection of strips from that time period (Doonesbury Deluxe). The dialogue is below. To contextualize the last panel: the strip was scheduled to run a couple weeks after Pres. Reagan visited a war cemetery in Germany that included some graves of SS troops, which caused a great controversy.
Day One:
Rick (to Joanie, who is on the phone): “Sure been burning up the wires, babe.”
Joanie: “Sorry, Rick. I’ve been trying to get people to come out for the local ‘Silent Scream’ protest.”
Rick: “‘Silent Scream?’ You sure you want to get involved with that?”
Joanie: “Rick, it’s an incendiary piece of propaganda. There may be a case to make for right-to-life, but that film isn’t it. It’s a disgrace that the president would endorse a documentary that dishonest. And now there’s been talk of a follow up.”
Switch to TV screen. Man holding up a vacuum hose: “Welcome to ‘Silent Scream II: The Prequel.'”
Day Two: (Documentary continues). “Good evening, and welcome to ‘Silent Scream II: The Prequel.’ In ‘Silent Scream I,’ we showed you the termination of a 12-week-old pregnancy. Tonight, we’ll be witnessing the end of a 12-minute-old pregnancy. Through the magic of fiber-optics, we’ve been able to take a computer-enhanced photo of the child in repose. As yet, he is unaware of the danger he faces.” (Narrator uses a pointer to indicate a speck on the screen). “Let’s call him ‘Timmy.'”
Day Three (Documentary continues): “While [Timmy]’s main preoccupation at this point is cell division, in most respects, he’s as human as you and I. What happens when he is abruptly swept from his mother? What are his reactions, his feelings, his point of view? We’ll be taking a look. This program seeks to make no judgments. Our only interest is in presenting the facts about kids like Timmy and letting the viewer draw his own conclusions.” Image switches to a woman’s profile as the narrator continues, “But first, let’s talk to the murderess herself.”
Day Four:
Documentary narrator: “Timmy’s mother. Wallowing in self-pity, she explains why Timmy will never see the light of day.”
Woman: “Look, honey, I’m unemployed, uneducated and totally unprepared for the responsibility. Why should I be forced to become a mother under those circumstances, especially when the kid’ll have no father?”
Documentary narrator: “No father? But…he was just conceived twelve minutes ago!”
Woman: Exactly. I should bring a kid into a world like this?”
Day Five: (Voice-over, while the narrator uses a pointer to indicate a speck on the screen): “As the moment approaches, Timmy seems almost oblivious to the charged debate that attends his fate. Minutes later, the die is cast. The mother has made the unconscionable decision that sets in motion the doctor’s grisly procedure. In the final seconds, by studying his mouth through stop-action imaging, we can determine Timmy’s final words, which are almost certainly, ‘Repeal Roe v. Wade.’ Coming up…Timmy Remembered.”
Day Six:
First three panels show the narrator, who says, “Timmy may be gone, but his story is part of one of the great moral debates of our times. We must face it with conviction: if abortion at any stage is, in fact, the taking of a life, then our reasoning must lead us to a monstrous conclusion. With 1.5 million abortions being performed annually, the leadership of this county is guilty of tolerating nothing less than a holocaust.”
Last panel switches to the White House. A thought bubble, presumably from a presidential advisor, thinks ‘Oh, no,” as the president says, “Gosh, there’s that word again.”
The strip is actually eerily prescient. Though not all pro-lifers openly refer to women having an abortion as ‘murderesses,’ there’s really nothing in the strip that wouldn’t have been said by many ‘Personhood’ advocates today.
Heather, thanks, going pretty well, have been very sick (bronchitis and double ear infection) but finally feeling better (2 rounds of antibiotics later).
JG, only 1) none of these bills mandate vaginal ultrasound, what type of ultrasound is to be used is 100% up to the ‘standard medical practice’ and the doctor’s/patient’s choice. ‘Forcing’ a vaginal ultrasound is nothing more than liberal hysteria trying the old trick of shouting a lie often enough to make people believe it. 2) an ultrasound is medically necessitated before an abortion (and surverys of abortion clinics show it’s common practice), the need for the law mandating it is so that unscurpulous abortion provider, which the abortion industry has been loath to self-regulate, can be held legally responsible for their (non) actions when they cause greivious harm to women because they refuse to follow standard medical practice. For instance in Virginia, where this recent mess liberal hysteria started, in the last couple of years there have been at least 3 deaths or significant injuries due to abortionists gravely underestimating the fetus age after starting an abortion without an ultrasound. Just ‘guessing’ the age at 10-15 weeks after a manual exam (or not even that) and doing an abortion for that guessed age when the babe is really 20-25 weeks along *is* a huge health risk. And it’s exactly the kind of thing unscrupulous abortionists do without any reprisal from the medical community. If such greivious ‘practice’ was preformed by other fields of medicine, their collegues, hospitals, practices, and state boards would take care of it (at least theoretically, there is a serious problem with all medical fields covering up bad apples), or at least pretend too. abortionists don’t even begin to pretend to self-regulate their field, so such legal regulation is necessary for the safety of women. That women will be *allowed* (since current practice is to deny any request to see the ultrasound) to see their baby and may in turn change their minds about killing him, is certainly an added bonus. But the point is to protect women whom the abortion industry and the liberal machine have forsaken to the alter of ‘more, more, more’ when it comes to ‘reproductive rights’.
Thanks Jill and LisaC, I was kind of curious and am very happy to find out what those strips were about without having to buy the book or anything.
Time for Trudeau to retire again. You know they’ve lost the argument when they keep making the points of the other side. He seems to have been hit in the head with the same two by four as that Tosh guy in the earlier post.
There’s no use talking to hysterical rambling.
Yesteday in the opening monologue of the Rush Limbaugh Show guest host Mark Steyn introduced himself as, ‘The foreign merecenary in the republican war on women’.
Steyn does not seem to be the least bit effected by the liberal feministas attempt to ‘shame’ conservatives for objecting to being forced to pay for other peoples recreational drugs and elective surgeries.
I love humor.
I can even appreciate Gary Trudeau’s wit even if I do not agree with his politics.
The ‘shaming room’ is priceless.
But the question is begged: If an elective abortion is as morally neutral as any other elective surgery then why is there any rational basis for ‘shame’?
Can you imagine any person being suceptable to ’shame’ for having their wisdom teeth removed even if they did it before it was medically necessary to do so?
Hal says: March 12, 2012 at 3:22 pm
Hi Jill. I don’t have any problem with medical professionals requiring procedures. I just get uneasy when politicians do it.
==============================================================
Hal,
You might have a point if some other ‘progressive’ politicians had not required taxpayers to fund the ‘healthcare’. [Pregnancy is not a an STD. Elective abortion is not ‘healthcare’.]
Once politicians get invited into womens’ uteri, then they have a legal right to govern what goes on there.
The only reason I would have to be ashamed about having my wisdom teeth extracted is if I had to beg somebody else to pay for it.
But the question is begged: If an elective abortion is as morally neutral as any other elective surgery then why is there any rational basis for ‘shame’?
Great point. Lack of rational thinking on the part of liberals is what made it legal in the first place. They should be ashamed of themselves. It’s plain wrong to justify killing one’s offspring under the cloak of privacy.
I don’t get why possession of child porn in the privacy of one’s home is illegal, but abortion is not. It should also be protected by the right to privacy. No one ever seems to have an answer…..
kEN: “The only reason I would have to be ashamed about having my wisdom teeth extracted is if I had to beg somebody else to pay for it.”
Come to think of it, I think anyone wanting “free” contraception darn well better demand, as a far higher priority, “free” dental care for the rest of us.