Today, I am ashamed to say that I was born a Hoosier. The state of Indiana, as well as Texas, Nebraska, and 8 other states are attempting to pass laws that would require ultrasounds prior to performing abortions, says USA Today. Not for the good or health of the mother mind you–remember this is pre-abortion–but on the off chance that she might catch a glimpse of her unborn fetus and change her mind.

Read more after the jump….

This pro-life tactic clogging the halls of state legislatures across the country is beyond reproach. The vast majority of women who enter clinics and doctors offices around the country to terminate their pregnancies take the choice incredibly seriously and have weighed their options. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 42% of women who become pregnant never even intended to become pregnant at all. But among those who do have abortions, 60% area already mothers and more than half intend to become pregnant again, says Guttmacher.

So why put these women through the gut-wrenching experience of watching their fetus right before they are about to have an abortion? It only seems cruel and heartbreaking to do to a woman who for reasons who are only her own cannot have at that very moment a child and who may very well later choose to have another child. To have the image of the child she lost burned into her brain is completely psychologically scarring and to have 11 state legislatures around the country ready to pass laws that would allow physicians and nurses to do such a thing is appalling and the antithesis of “do no harm”.

One can only hope that legislators will come to their senses and vote against the law.

Summer Johnson, PhD