Keep in mind PolitiFact skews heavily to the left.
Via PolitiFact:
Ohio’s new operating budget calls for $62 billion in spending over two years and several abortion restrictions, including one that requires patients seeking one to first undergo an ultrasound. […]
In interpreting some of the budget’s more-ambiguous abortion language, Maddow contended that the new regulations included a “mandatory vaginal probe at the insistence of the state.”
Maddow was referring to a new requirement that women seeking abortions first receive ultrasounds to determine whether a fetal heartbeat is present. Her provocative words quickly went viral and sent PolitiFact Ohio in search of a full copy of the massive state budget.
Did it go as far as she claimed? Did it mandate a transvaginal ultrasound, as Maddow claimed, or did it allow for an external transabdominal procedure? We found our answer in the new Section 2919.191 that with the budget’s approval is now part of Ohio Revised Code.
Division A of that section says that before performing an abortion, a provider must “determine whether there is a detectable fetal heartbeat of the unborn human individual the pregnant woman is carrying.” The method for detecting a heartbeat is then spelled out in Division C, which says:
“The director of health may promulgate rules pursuant to section 111.15 of the Revised Code specifying the appropriate methods of performing an examination for the presence of a fetal heartbeat of an unborn individual based on standard medical practice. The rules shall require only that an examination shall be performed externally.”
In other words, not only are external methods such as transabdominal ultrasounds allowed under the new law; they are required. That sinks Maddow’s claim of a “mandatory vaginal probe.” […]
But there should be no debate about what types of ultrasounds these new regulations require. Had Maddow read the language closely, she would have seen a mandate — for external detection methods. That puts Maddow’s “vaginal probe” claim about as far as can be from the truth, into the realm of the ridiculous.
Or, in Truth-O-Meter terms: Pants on Fire!