KANSAS CITY, mo. — A national syndicate will offer replacement “Doonesbury” comic strips to newspapers that don’t want to run an upcoming series that uses graphic imagery to lampoon a Texas law requiring women to have an ultrasound before an abortion, officials said Friday.
Papers were debating the use and placement of next week’s strips by cartoonist Garry Trudeau, whose sarcastic swipes at society’s foibles have a history of giving headaches to newspaper editors.
“We’ve heard from a handful of papers that are uncomfortable with running the series,” said Sue Roush, managing editor at the Universal UClick syndicate. “Garry has provided us with substitutes in case anyone asks.”
The Denver Post does not print “Doonesbury.”
The Texas series features a woman who goes to an abortion clinic and is confronted by several people who suggest she should be ashamed. Among them is a doctor who reads a script on behalf of Texas Gov. Rick Perry welcoming her to a “compulsory transvaginal exam.”
Texas’ law does not specify the type of sonogram a woman must receive, but an invasive transvaginal ultrasound is necessary to meet requirements that the doctor show the woman an image of the fetus, describe its features and make the fetal heartbeat audible in the first trimester.
Asked for a comment on the “Doonesbury” series, Perry spokesman Catherine Frasier said, “The decision to end a life isn’t funny.”
