One more thing the Lege can’t understand

On March 15, 2011, four journalists from The New York Times were held captive in Libya during Arab Spring.

Amid gunfire, soldiers stopped the journalists’ vehicle, held them at gunpoint, beat, robbed and bound them with scarves, handcuffs and shoelaces.

When forced to their knees, photographer Lynsey Addario whispered to videographer Stephen Farrell, “God, I just don’t want to be raped.”

In the face of death, Addario verbalized, not her fear of being murdered in a foreign country, but her fear that a man would force himself inside of her.

Fearing rape is the plight of women.

Sexuality is something most women will struggle with for most of their lives.

Being promiscuous — whatever that means — holds a negative connotation of disrespecting oneself and a “dirtiness” that can’t be remedied.

Not being open to at least some sexual experiences makes a woman a prude — whatever that means — who holds outdated ideas of sexuality.

There’s the constant questioning by women about what sex means or shouldn’t mean, how we rank among other women our age, and the impact of our choices on the physicality and attractiveness of our vaginas.

In May, the Texas Legislature passed HB 15, further impinging on a woman’s right to choose.

It has forced women seeking abortions to undergo an ultrasound, hear the heartbeat of the fetus, watch as a doctor points out “body parts” and attempts to manipulate women into deciding against having an abortion.

All the while, the Texas Legislature, composed of 79.1 percent males in 2011, attempts to minimize what this bill means to women.

It means forcing a transducer into the vagina of a woman.

According to www.hopkinsmedicine.org, a vaginal ultrasound is conducted when, “a long, thin transducer is covered with the conducting gel and a plastic/latex sheath and is inserted into the vagina.”

It is state-sanctioned rape; the transducer even wears a condom.

Disagree?

Let’s turn the tables.

The American Cancer Society predicts that 241,740 new cases of prostate cancer will be diagnosed this year in the United States. It estimates 28,170 men will die from prostate cancer this year in the United States.

So, what if 80 percent of women decided the only way for men to make informed health choices is to force them to submit to an annual transrectal ultrasound?

A transrectal ultrasound is exactly like a vaginal ultrasound, except the transducer is shaped to fit in a rectum and it is used to look at a male’s pelvic organs, such as the prostate.

I cannot begin to imagine how men struggle with sexuality throughout their lives, but I can imagine the outcry over governmental policy forcing anal penetration on men.

Still think opposition to HB 15 is hysterical feminism?

I do not mean to minimize the endemic nature of cancer, but the situations are similar.

Both allow the Texas Legislature to intervene in the confidentiality of doctors and patients.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1973 that such intervention by a state is a violation of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,” was deemed applicable to personal privacy.

The reasoning behind this verdict has been ignored by the Legislature, making HB 15 blatantly unconstitutional.

That decision was prompted by a case originating in Texas.

Anti-abortion laws had been in effect since the late 1860s at the insistence of the American Medical Association, which saw commercialization and home remedies infringing on their elite status, and as the government sought to settle the West — with white Protestants rather than Mexican, Catholic and non-Anglo European immigrants.

By no accident, this also coincided with a rise in the women’s suffrage movement.

Visit http://www.fyi.legis.state.tx.us/ to find your state representatives and tell them to stop the state-sanctioned sexual assault.

Say you will not stand for this violation of women and abuse of the Constitution.

Because while termination of a pregnancy may not be the right choice for you or someone you know, it may be the right and healthy — but never easy — choice for others.

Then remind them women finally won the right to vote.