Monica Yant Kinney: Opening eyes to a faulty bill

Radio advertisers aren't alone in knowing to butt out of customers' sex lives. Across Pennsylvania, legislators who supported the Women's Right to Know Act - a.k.a. the Transvaginal Ultrasound Bill - are rushing to retract.

Like the sponsors dumping Rush Limbaugh after he called a contraception advocate a "slut," pols reading polls have erased their names from the antiwoman measure. As of last week, 30 of HB 1077's 111 cosponsors had bolted.

Gov. Corbett seeks a smaller bureaucracy, but when it comes to abortion, he supports wedging government into women's private parts. The stance has cost him popularity, but he remains defiant in defending mandatory fetal ultrasounds.

"I'm not making anybody watch," Corbett told reporters last week. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature= player_embedded&v= 2m2AawMJzvU). "You just have to close your eyes."

Since Corbett thinks it's perfectly appropriate to legislate a lubricated invasion of privacy, he and the bill's remaining sponsors ought to prove that such tests are nothing to fear by undergoing the male equivalent: the transrectal ultrasound. They could even broadcast the procedures on PCN as a PSA for prostate cancer screening.

This test begins with an enema and ends with a man lying on his side with knees bent having a wand inserted through the anus and into the rectum. A warning: It may involve minimal discomfort.

State Rep. Tina Davis (D., Bucks) counts herself among the changed minds after thinking in error that HB1077 sought to grant "every woman the right to an ultrasound." Given the uproar, we both wonder who in his or her right mind would sign on to the legislation now. Though the legislation is not specific about the type of ultrasound, the language suggests it would have to be transvaginal when the embryo is too small to be seen.

"What's lost in these discussions about abortion and contraception is that if government has the power to prohibit [abortion], government can also have the power to insist upon it," said Carol Tracy, of the Women's Law Project. "Legislators putting themselves in place of doctors are on a very dangerous path."

Pennsylvania has been on that treacherous road for decades.

The commonwealth has long protected medical professionals who fail to order or explain - or even misread - prenatal tests whose results might lead women to terminate a pregnancy. The little-known law prohibits suits by parents alleging "wrongful birth" and on behalf of disfigured children suffering a "wrongful life."

Bruce Nagel, a North Jersey malpractice attorney, told me Pennsylvania is one of nine states admired by antiabortion activists seeking to indemnify physicians who allow their religious or political views to trump the Hippocratic oath. "Some of these cases involve prenatal tests not being given," Nagel said, "simply because a doctor doesn't believe in abortion."

Whether HB1077 lives or dies, the Corbett-era war on women - and on a broader group of disenfranchised constituents including the disabled - continues to be waged with your tax dollars.

The Welfare Department claims a mission "to promote, improve and sustain the quality of family life." But the real focus - emphasized on its home page in bold red and blue text - is busting poor people:

To report welfare fraud, call 1-800-932-0582.

Last Monday, the Corbett administration hyped the arrest of 10 Philadelphians - eight of them women - accused of pocketing $66,882 in welfare benefits after landing jobs.

Six investigators with the Office of the Inspector General, two Fugitive Task Force troopers, a State Police supervisor, and members of the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office worked on the investigation - which involved individual thefts of less than $10,000.

Talk about waste and abuse . . . of state resources.

Days later, Corbett heralded the sentencing of nine welfare recipients (to probation and restitution) for keeping $67,700 worth of food stamps and child-care assistance.

The message to women, sent by one of their own, Inspector General Kenya Mann Faulkner: "If you try to beat the system, you will lose."