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As Rachel Maddow noted in her segment above, it looks like Indiana Gov. Mike Pence may be set to follow in Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's shoes and take over the title of Governor Ultrasound if he ends up supporting this bill that just passed his state's Senate.

Indiana Bill Would Force Women To Undergo Two Transvaginal Probes To Take A Pill (UPDATED):

A medication abortion pill, officially known as RU-486, is the earliest available abortion option for a woman. A patient could be as little as one week pregnant and take the pill to terminate. But despite the incredibly early stage at which the pill is administered, a new bill proposed in the Indiana State Senate would require women to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound before they are permitted to simply swallow the medication.

Indiana’s effort follows a sweeping national trend to mandate the medically unnecessary and invasive procedure as a way to create barriers to abortion access. And theirs goes a step further, by also forcing clinics that administer the pill to meet all of the same requirements as a surgical abortion clinic: [...]

UPDATE: Indiana’s bill is actually twice as invasive as most forced ultrasound bills, the Huffington Post reports. The version that advanced out of a Senate committee today would require women to undergo two transvaginal probes — before and after taking the abortion pill. There’s no medically necessary reason to require an ultrasound after an abortion procedure, since women can simply take a blood test to see whether their hormone levels have returned to normal to verify that they are no longer pregnant.

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Gov. Tom Corbett (R) says he supports forcing women to have an ultrasound before an abortion because they can just close their eyes.

Guttmacher Institute policy analyst Elizabeth Nash said last month that Pennsylvania's proposed measure is one of the most restrictive anti-abortion bills that she had ever seen.

In addition to mandating transvaginal ultrasounds, the bill encourages women to listen to the procedure and view images of the fetus.

At a press conference earlier this week, Corbett said he supported the proposal as long as the ultrasound was not "obtrusive."

"Making them watch, does that go too far in your mind?" one reporter asked.

"I don't know how you make anybody watch," Corbett replied. "You just have to close your eyes. But as long as it's on the exterior and not the interior."

The Pennsylvania governor was also pressed on whether Republican lawmakers were "overreaching" on social issues like the anti-abortion bill, voter ID requirements and a same sex marriage ban.

"The legislature is going to do what the legislature wants to do," Corbett explained. "I'm certainly not going to prevent them from having their debates or try to prevent them from having their debates. And that's the purpose of a legislature."

"It has been clear to me for a long time that we have an independent-minded center of the electorate that will move back and forth between the two ends of the spectrum," he added. "We won't know that result of that until we get to November."

On Wednesday, Corbett's signature made Pennsylvania the first state in 2012 to enact a law requiring an ID to vote.

(H/T: Think Progress)

As I write this on Thursday morning, there is a Congressional hearing called by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Manistan) protesting the intrusion of government into religion, sparked by Kathleen Sebelius' issuance of regulations requiring health insurers to provide contraception with no co-payments. Democratic women walked out on the hearing after their witnesses were not allowed to appear before the committee.

As is true of all congressional hearings, elected officials are posturing and chest-beating over religious freedoms and intrusive government. Their claim: requiring contraception without co-payments is excessive government intrusion into religious freedom.

Yet somehow, insertion of a probe into a woman which is mandatory and required by the government is not considered intrusive government. Rachel Maddow does a great job of explaining this insanity in the video above.

Conservatives are hypocrites. This isn't a surprise. Even so, it's shockingly cynical to hear them quote everyone from Stalin to Martin Luther King with the full nods of their chosen religious leaders sitting before them. This hearing deserves to be put alongside what they fully believe should be allowed to be done to women by the state. Very, very big government.

No birth control, ladies, but if you happen to get pregnant and want an abortion, we're going to shove a transvaginal probe in you before we "let you" have that abortion. There's some liberty for you.

This is 2012, right? Here, let me show you what Issa's panel looks like:

Here's some of the testimony they excluded, from Sandra Fluke, a third-year student at Georgetown Law, a Jesuit school:

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