This is what Roberta Hassele, 44, of San Antonio knows about Texas' sonogram bill.

It is an instrument of insensitivity that will inflict emotional distress on women already in distress. It treats women as children, as if they don't already know the biology of pregnancy or don't already feel the weight of their decision.

And, demanding actions way beyond what's necessary for informed consent, it's a measure that will make doctors unwilling participants in an anti-abortion agenda.

Hassele knows all these things because she has been in relevant shoes. What this sonogram bill imposes is just simply “cruel,” she said.

A federal judge in Texas is considering arguments on whether this law, approved in the last session, should stand. It was one of Gov. Rick Perry's emergency legislative items. It requires doctors performing abortions to administer sonograms and then describe in detail what they see to the patient. The woman must then wait 24 hours before having the abortion, unless she lives more than 100 miles from the clinic.

Hassele, a former sales rep and an activist in San Antonio's arts community, was a 14-year-old middle school student from a poor Brooklyn neighborhood when she told her mother she was pregnant. “She beat the (expletive) out of me,” she said.

It was not an ideal household in which to bring a child. The family was on public assistance, and there were other issues.

“I was 14 years old. How was I going to finish high school, how was I going to get out of the 'hood?” she said. “Do I want to be Gloria and Yvette and all the girls in the neighborhood who had babies?”

She remembers the day vividly, right down to what she wore and the protesters waving horrid fetus placards in their faces while her stepdad tried to shield her. She said he punched one of them.

There was a second abortion when Hassele was 23 and was working in restaurants in Washington D.C. The father left for abroad, and she knew she wasn't ready to be a single mother.

No, Hassele does not view abortion as birth control. It's clear from my talk with her that she views it as a decision made by the person who knows best her own readiness and capacity at the given time to provide what a child needs.

Hassele has come forward with her story to demonstrate this is no abstract issue. It amounts to emotional pain inflicted at a painful time during what is, many conveniently ignore, a legal medical procedure. Here's what she would tell U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks as he mulls the arguments.

“I would ask him how he would react if the woman in that situation was a family member,” she said.

The result if this bill is allowed to stand might very well be fewer abortions and fewer doctors willing to perform them. But that, along with the Legislature's assault on Planned Parenthood funding, will result in more unwanted babies.

Many of you will judge Hassele harshly because of the decisions she made.

Know that she is a strong, smart woman, a stalwart in the arts community, someone who miscarried a baby she would have loved and the proud mother of a 12-year-old son she dearly loves.

Perhaps you would not have made the same decisions, but they are not yours to make.

And that's the point.

Perry, who believes a state ban on texting while driving is intrusive, would have you believe that inflicting emotional pain to tip the scales toward a decision he wants women to make isn't.

It is intrusion of the vilest sort.

o.ricardo.pimentel@express-news.net