The Aliens are in Retreat

It was Jon Stewart that Killed the Beast

So the space the aliens^* more commonly known as the Virginia Republican Party, following extensive coverage, or no small amount of ridicule, have started to walk back from the bill requiring that women be probed in genitals if they want an abortion:

Virginia governor Bob McDonnell has performed a U-turn on a controversial bill which would have forced women seeking first trimester abortions to undergo an invasive transvaginal ultrasound.

McDonnell had previously said he would sign the bill if it was passed by the general assembly. But faced with growing opposition, McDonnell released a statement on Wednesday minutes before the bill was debated in the House, in which he said that, after discussions with lawyers, physicians and legal experts, amendments were needed to "address various medical and legal issues which have arisen."

Critics had pointed out that the bill, if passed in its original form, would have obliged doctors to carry out a procedure that risked breaking a state sex crime statute known as object sexual penetration.

State lawmakers passed the amended bill on Wednesday afternoon. It now explicitly states that no woman will have to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound involuntarily. Instead, it requires women seeking an abortion to have an external, transabdominal ultrasound.

The changes also include having a doctor ask the woman if she wants to see an image from the ultrasound rather than requiring a copy to be attached to her medical file.

The upside is that they are retreating because their ideas on this are completely toxic.

What I fear is that they will keep coming back to this, and in a few years, it will be considered a legitimate area of dispute, as opposed to the rantings of bat-sh%$ insane Taliban wannabees.

^*Basically we know that aliens conduct involuntary probes of their captives, and so do the Republicans in Virginia, QED Virginia Republicans are space aliens.