More on Oklahoma's Mandatory Ultrasound Law

Slate: Required Viewing: Oklahoma's gallingly paternalistic ultrasound law, by Emily Bazelon:

For many pregnant women, ultrasounds are like candy—there can't be too many of those grainy black-and-white images of the fetus napping or kicking in the womb. But if you're pregnant and don't want to be and are considering an abortion, an ultrasound image could be an object of dread. It might force you to think about the fetus as having a separate identity or as the baby it could become.

Dread is the emotion pro-life groups look to instill when they push states to pass laws that make an ultrasound part of the abortion procedure. It should also be said that women may, in fact, react otherwise: They could shrug off the ultrasound as a matter of indifference or even greet it with relief, because an image taken during the first trimester may look much more like a blinking light, or a newt, than a baby. I've never seen a study measuring how many women feel what, but abortion opponents believe that if women see the physical evidence of their pregnancy on the screen, at least some of them will decide not to end it.