'Murderer': OK Senator files bill to punish woman getting an abortion, wants to ban contraception
A freshman Senator has filed a bill that would charge Oklahoma women who get an abortion with murder.
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) - A freshman Senator has filed a bill that would charge Oklahoma women who get an abortion with murder.
Senate Bill 1729, also known as the Abolition of Abortion Act, follows the "image of God."
"It's very simple. It seeks to take the exception for prenatal homicide, which is abortion, out of the homicide code and make it give equal protection under the law to all lives from the moment of conception to natural death," stated Senator Dusty Deevers, R-Elgin.
The proposal states an abortion can only be justified if it's to save the mother's or unborn child's life. The other exception is a spontaneous miscarriage.
Reasons that don't fall under that umbrella, like rape and incest, would punish the mother.
The bill would charge her with murder.
"We want people to get the care they need. But when we create these very limited and dangerous bills, with these limited exceptions, we know that has a true impact on just health care in general and pregnancy outcomes," stated the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma Executive Director and Chair for the Oklahoma Call for Reproductive Rights, Tamaya Cox-Toure.
While Sen. Deevers argues abortion doesn't fall under health care, Representative Mickey Dollens, D-OKC, said, "If life and death isn't a health care issue, then what is? When we have doctors who are telling patients to go into the parking lot and wait until you bleed more so we can confidently say that you're close enough to death to save your life - is that not a health care issue?"
Oklahoma State Attorney General Gentner Drummond released an opinion late last year, stating there were no current laws that criminalize abortion for mothers.
"Why do you want to do that now?" asked News 4's Capitol Bureau Chief, Kaylee Olivas.
"I don't want to do that," responded Sen. Deevers.
"But that's what it seems like in the bill," said Olivas.
"That's the wrong framing. The right framing is equal protection under the law," stated Sen. Deevers. "If you kill a person, then you're a murderer and you deserve to have due process... like any other murderer."
The bill does include an exception to charges. If a woman is coerced into an abortion, Sen. Deevers said the state would not pursue charges.
"She's not done anything that was murderous. She's not had the intent to with malice aforethought to kill her child. We've added those protections in there to make that clear," he said.
Sen. Deevers said another protection added into the proposal would cover physicians.
"A doctor who has no malice aforethought, who is under the Hippocratic Oath, is seeking to treat both lives equally and to try to do no harm to both," stated Sen. Deevers. "He's not an intentional murderer, nor is he murdering. If that life of the baby perishes under his care, then that's part of the triage situation. Not only would he not be a murderer, nor would the mother or anyone else who was treating an emergency pregnancy."
Cox-Toure told KFOR abortion should be an individual right.
"The government needs to stay out of health care decisions, and that is what we've been asking for, for the last 25 years around abortion legislation," said Cox-Toure. "We're extremely concerned. We know this is one of the most extreme, most dangerous anti-abortion bills we've seen. Abortion care is a health care issue. Because it's a health care issue, the government should stay out of these health care decisions. Anyone who wants to debate the morality part of it, that's not for us to say. People get to make those decisions."
ACLU Oklahoma will continue to monitor the movement of SB1729 as the organization states it's unconstitutional.
Rep. Dollens told KFOR while the bill hasn't been heard on either chamber floor yet, he can see it going either way.
"I know a lot of my colleagues behind closed doors despise legislation like this. However, it is an election year, so I wouldn't hold anything back," said Rep. Dollens.
He added legislation as such is not the way to go. Rep. Dollens suggests anyone who supports Sen. Deevers' proposal to file a state question and let Oklahomans vote rather than lawmakers.
"We don't want controlling politicians at the Capitol telling us what we can and can't do with our bodies," explained Rep. Dollens. "Obviously we want to reduce abortions as much as we can. That's why it's so important to advocate for contraception, for safe sex, for responsible decisions. But when people just stick their head in the sand and say this is the only way, that's disingenuous and it's not healthy. It's not health care."
Sen. Deevers said despite an in-person and online abortion clinic ban in Oklahoma, contraceptive is still easily accessible and cheap.
"If a mother is pursuing with malice aforethought to kill her pre-born child, then that should be illegal. It's murder. However she chooses to do it, whether it's through abortion pills or a coat hanger or hiring a hit man to kill her child. We think that any life that is taken with malice aforethought needs to be protected and it needs to be treated as murder," stated Sen. Deevers.
"Oklahomans, unfortunately, are in a very difficult position of trying to get the care they need."
Tamaya Cox-Toure, American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma Executive Director and Chair for the Oklahoma Call for Reproductive Rights
While community and political leaders battle it out over legislation regarding abolishing abortion and punishing women for getting one, an Abolition Day rally swamped the South Plaza of the Capitol Tuesday morning.
Alongside Sen. Dusty Deevers was Senator Warren Hamiliton, R-McCurtain, and several church leaders.
"I'm here because Christ is lord. He has demanded us to work for justice for all those made in his image," said abortion abolitionist, Samuel Smith. "Repent your sin, come to Christ, stand for justice."
Smith told KFOR there is no justification for abortion, even in rape and incest cases.
He also stands behind SB1729 and said the woman should be punished for aborting her unborn child because it's a "sin."
Another abortion abolitionist said there is a concern the foster care system will be overcrowded with this legislation, but hopes lawmakers factor in a solution for that.