"Doonesbury" creator explains why he did abortion comic strip series

(CBS News) "Doonesbury" creator Garry Trudeau says he couldn't ignore a Texas law passed last spring mandating that women seeking an abortion first have a vaginal sonogram to hear the heartbeat of a fetus.

"To ignore it," Trudeau told the Washington Post, "would have been comedy malpractice."

But by tackling the controversial issue, Trudeau has sparked debate. Some newspapers have chosen not to run the syndicated comic strip series this week, while others removed it from the paper and instead posted it online. Not every paper has made a move though. The Cleveland Plain Dealer, for example, explains that it can't "yank the strip every time it deals with a highly charged issue." Still, others have temporarily shifted the strip to the op-ed pages.

"Oddly, for such a sensitive topic, I found it easy to write," the political satirist told the Washington Post about the abortion series. "The story is very straightforward ... and the only creative problem I had to work through was the physician's perspective. I settled on resigned outrage."

Trudeau told the Post why he thinks the mandate, passed by a Republican-majority in Texas, is so intrusive.

"Texas's HB-15 [bill] isn't hard to explain: The bill says that in order for a woman to obtain a perfectly legal medical procedure, she is first compelled by law to endure a vaginal probe with a hard, plastic 10-inch wand," he said. "The World Health Organization defines rape as 'physically forced or otherwise coerced penetration -- even if slight -- of the vulva or anus, using a penis, other body parts or an object.' You tell me the difference."

In the comic, a nurse tells a woman at the clinic, "Sorry miss, you're first trimester. The male Republicans who run Texas require that all abortion seekers be examined with a 10? shaming wand."

A physician, who's about to perform the procedure, then says, "By the authority invested in me by the GOP base, I thee rape."

This isn't the first time "Doonesbury" has been at the heart of controversy. In 1985, six installments of the strip satirizing the anti-abortion movie "The Silent Scream" were scrapped.

Go here to see the "Doonesbury" comic strip.

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