I'm not sure what they're trying to accomplish here, since an ultrasound of a first-trimester fetus pretty much looks like a blurry salamander. But if this idea is constitutional, then we should steal the idea -- it's time we required military inductees to first view photos of soldiers killed by IED's, or others coming home with arms and legs missing, or perhaps we should force them first to be "counselled" by grieving children and parents of the dead.

To continue with Kathleen's good idea, why not offer some counseling every time someone buys a pack of cigarettes. A little one on one with a black lung, or a person who's lost their voice box, or...well you get the picture. That might actually create a truly beneficial result-fewer smokers means a healthier population.

...as long as they include "education" on what it's like to be a mother. Perhaps the prospective patient could be required to babysit a newborn in the middle of the night, or spend the day with a single mom or sit in with a female lawyer being denied partnership because she took a maternity leave. Perhaps watch as a woman gives birth and then signs the adoption papers as the baby is taken away? Later, we could send them down to the welfare office and show them WIC and food stamp forms. Then show them the ultrasound.

From bill S.84: "the images used to verify the probable gestational age must be reviewed with the woman seeking the abortion."

Clarifying which meaning of the word review really doesn't change things. Whatever Webster's definition you use for "review," you can't do any of them without experiencing the data. The data in this case is an image. You can't smell, taste, touch or hear something that is purely an image (you could possibly smell, taste, touch or hear the paper the image is printed on, but that's about it). You have to see an image to review it.

Which kinda makes me wonder what they'd do if the pregnant woman were blind. An embossed, Braille-like depiction of the ultrasound?

"Guess what- according to this ultrasound, you're pregnant!"

Talk about a waste of health care dollars - what is the medical need of this ultrasound? If you are planning to carry the baby to term you don't need a first term ultrasound.

...is that before an abortion, they need to determine gestational age, and for that you need an ultrasound. You need to know gestational age in order to to know which procedure to use. You can't just take someone who's walking in asking for an abortion and start whacking around in her uterus without taking a look at what's inside of it first.