Oklahoma already has one of the strictest abortion bans in the country. But so-called “abolitionists” in the state Senate are attempting to take it even further, by punishing women who terminate their fetuses with the death penalty.
The bill SB 456, which was proposed by Sen. Dusty Deevers in January, would have made abortion equivalent to homicide under the law, and the woman who underwent the procedure subject to the same punishments they would face if they committed a murder. This would include life in prison and potentially death.
The bill stated that these punishments would be applicable if the person had an abortion to which they “consented” to the procedure. It also stated that the punishment would not apply to spontaneous abortion, aka miscarriage, or if the procedure was necessary to save the mother’s life. A woman could defend herself against prosecution, it further states, if she can prove she had a “reasonable belief” that her life would be at risk. The bill would also ban abortion drugs.
Currently in Oklahoma, abortion is completely banned unless it is “necessary to preserve” the life of the mother, a law that went into effect following the end of Roe v. Wade in 2022. But for the state senators, prosecuting women was a bridge too far. The state’s bipartisan Senate Judiciary Committee voted down the bill on Feb. 19, the Oklahoma Voice reported. According to the newspaper, the lawmakers questioned how the bill would work in practice, as any resident who gets an abortion has to leave the state to do so and it would be hard to track who is traveling for the procedure and when.
Deevers, who in introducing the bill called women who get abortions a “protected class” of murderers, said on X that he considers the measure a success despite its failure because he got to spread his message and have a “debate.”
“Friends, this is how we win,” he wrote.
And Cindy Ngyuen, the head of the ACLU in the state, told the Oklahoma Voice she doesn’t expect this will be the last time we will see a bill of this kind.
“It tends to come up every year,” she said.
