Latest abortion bill passes

The Oklahoma House on Tuesday passed a bill aimed at preventing poor women from having abortions, even if their health is threatened by their pregnancies.

Senate Bill 714 prohibits a state employee from performing or assisting in an abortion in a public facility. The measure essentially cuts off public funding for any abortions. That will most affect low-income women who are forced to seek care in public facilities.

The measure now goes back to the Senate, where it passed earlier, for consideration of House amendments.

Rep. Doug Cox, R-Grove, who is the only physician in the Legislature, opposed SB 714, saying that it would take away a doctor's ability to decide what's best in extreme cases such as when the mother's health is in danger. The only exception allowed in the bill would be if the mother would die unless an abortion were performed. Cox pointed out that it is not possible for a doctor to say for certain that a woman would die if she did not have an abortion.

Cox also asked his fellow lawmakers, "Why would you force a woman to carry to term a child that will die at birth?" Why indeed? Because legislators presume to know more than doctors on such matters.

SB 714 is just the latest in a steady drumbeat of legislation intended to chip away both a woman's right to have an abortion and her practical chances of obtaining one. The anti-abortionists, who currently have a stranglehold on Oklahoma's political processes, won't rest until we return to the old days when women with enough money could travel out of the country if necessary to have an abortion performed in safe surroundings by qualified medical personnel, while those at the other end of the economic scale were forced to seek back-alley, coat-hanger abortions.

The most galling thing about Tuesday's vote was the lawmakers' presumptuousness in limiting physicians' right to counsel and treat their patients. SB 714 was opposed not only by the lone medical expert among their ranks but by the Oklahoma State Medical Association and the Oklahoma Osteopathic Association as well.

Here's a suggestion, dear reader: Next time you're feeling under the weather don't call a doctor, call a legislator.