Sound and Fury in Texas

"Ultrasound machines are not toys," says Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. To underscore his point, he's harassing four Texas businesses that use ultrasound to provide parents with keepsake images of their babies-to-be. Three companies are under investigation, while a fourth had its equipment confiscated for so long it went out of business. The businesses were told that they need a physician on hand to oversee the procedure. But under Texas law, a physician can't condone any non-medical use of ultrasound.

In thirty years of use, there have been no known harmful effects associated with ultrasound, which relies on sound waves, not radiation, to map images. It's cheap, innocuous, and apparently has both non-medical and medical applications. But the fact that the risks are imaginary won't stop the Texas Attorney General's Office from earnestly protecting women from them:

The bottom line is that the sonogram must be done for a medical reason because the health and safety of the mother must be considered, Kelley said.

Props to Catallarchy.