Hartford, CT (LifeNews.com) -- Under a new bill pro-abortion Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell signed into law last week, an ultrasound of an unborn child can't be done without a medical reason or authorization from a physician.

Rell claimed she signed the bill because she is concerned about the health and safety of mothers and unborn children. However, no studies have revealed any negative health affects for either by viewing an ultrasound.

The bill is also an effort to target the new ultrasound "boutiques" that allow parents of unborn children to view an ultrasound and take home their children's first baby pictures of them moving around in the womb.

The new law will take effect on July 1.

The bill follows a warning the Food and Drug Administration put out in May 2004 warning against using ultrasounds for entertainment.

"Ultrasound is a form of energy, and even at low levels, laboratory studies have shown it can produce physical effects in tissue, such as jarring vibrations and a rise in temperature," the FDA said at the time.

The agency said it was encouraging pregnant women to forego prenatal portraits, videos, and CD-ROMs, which are available from specialty photo studios around the country.

Still, the director of the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health, physician Dan Schultz, admitted that ultrasound technology has proven to be safe.

"We don't know what the long-term effects are," Schultz told Knight-Ridder. "We don't know whether a mother is exposed to excessive doses (of) ultrasound energy."

Mel Stratmeyer of the FDA's Office of Science and Technology concedes that animal studies have not shown any evidence of low-dose ultrasounds causing fetal harm.

"But the issue of keepsake videos has to be that if there's even a possibility of potential risk, why take the chance?" Stratmeyer said in an FDA publication at the time.

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