Cartoonist Garry Trudeau - Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Garry Trudeau - has had his daily strip Doonesbury dropped by some US papers due to it’s depiction of a pregnant women seeking an abortion in under the conditions of Texan law.
Recently introduced the Texan law requires abortion providers to perform an ultrasound on pregnant women, show and describe the image to them, and play sounds of the foetal heartbeat. Women can decline to view images or hear the heartbeat, but they must listen to a description of the exam. There are also other procedures required which might be described as intrusive. Similar, albeit less extreme, bills have been passed in Virginia, as well as in Oklahoma and North Carolina, where they are on hold pending legal battles, and are being contemplated in Alabama, Kentucky, Rhode Island and Mississippi.
Portland newspaper The Oregonian has dropped the strip as have others. Universal Uclick, the syndicate behind Doonesbury, has had enquiries from a number of newspapers asking if an alternative story line would be supplied to replace of the one concerned with abortion.
The subject might seem unlikely for a daily comic strip but Trudeau is quoted as saying “to ignore it would have been comedy malpractice“.