MORGANTOWN -- A lecture at West Virginia University Friday focused on an emerging and controversial law that requires women to look at their ultrasounds before undergoing an abortion.
The law is in effect in 13 states, and according to the Columbia law professor giving the lecture, it's also under discussion in the West Virginia legislature.
The talk focused on the impact a visual image has on a patient when the ultrasound becomes more than a diagnostic tool.
Speaker professor Carol Sanger said she is not against ultrasounds used in that way.
"But there's a huge difference in requiring a woman to face the screen, in giving the doctor a script to read along with it, in defining the pregnancy as a whole unique human being," she said. "So there are a number of differences. It takes what is a medical experience and pushes into sort of a well-defined legal experience."
Sanger told the audience that the law is written into informed consent clauses in abortion laws. That prompted one audience member to ask if lawmakers thought women needed the extra help to understand what an abortion entailed.
Sanger said later the law constitutes a form of "mild harassment."
Another attendee, a doctor, brought up the health care provider's point of view, that they become part of the legal process when they perform these mandated meetings.
Sanger said she had not looked at that perspective in her research, yet.
Friday's talk was part of an annual lecture series about medical and legal issues at WVU's College of Law.
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