The Other Road to Serfdom and the Path to Sustainable Democracy

On the Oklahoma Abortion Laws, SUVs, and Climate Justice

208 on the oklahoma abortion laws, SUVs, and climate justice i n 2008 and 2009, the Republican-controlled state legislature of Oklahoma passed two of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation. The laws were quickly challenged in state courts, where they were found unconstitutional for a technical flaw: each had embodied several distinct anti-choice measures and had thereby violated the state’s constitutional provision that prohibits laws from addressing more than one subject. The result, predictably enough, was a 2010 legislative session in which the Republicans tackled their separate anti-abortion purposes in separate bills. Seven were sent to Governor Brad Henry for signature in 2010; the House was particularly expeditious , dispatching five on the same day. Governor Henry signed four, vetoed three—and those vetoes were quickly overridden. hb 2780 might be called the Mandatory Ultrasound Act. It requires that before a woman receives an abortion, the abortion provider has to perform an ultrasound examination on her and has to display the images to her while simultaneously narrating what is on the screen. Leaving nothing to the discretion of the doctor or “certified technician,” the law requires that specific anatomic features of the fetus be shown and named, including “internal organs and members.” Aside from medical emergencies in which pausing for an ultrasound would endanger life, there are no exceptions—not even for rape or incest. The only grace the law offers is that the woman being subjected to this unwanted, medically unnecessary exam will not violate the law if she declines to look. The law was immediately challenged by the Center for Reproductive Rights (which had brought suit against the two omnibus laws), and in July 2010 an injunction was granted halting enforcement of it while the case is pending. Another law, one of the three passed over the governor’s veto, pro- abortion laws, SUVs, and climate justice 209 hibits any claims for damages from a doctor or medical facility on the basis of “wrongful life” or “wrongful birth.” As the Center for Reproductive Rights describes it: “The law essentially gives physicians and other medical professionals permission to lie to or intentionally mislead pregnant patients, including concealing information about fetal anomalies, withholding vital medical information, and failing to perform available tests, without fear of legal consequences.” Another law requires that when abortifactant medicine—RU 486, the “morning after” pill—is administered, the prescribing doctor must be in the room with the patient. This will halt the practice of “telemedicine ,” in which the prescribing doctor attends by video link and the medication is administered by a registered nurse or physician’s assistant . Like the ultrasound law, the law can’t be justified as improving medical practice—it addresses only one kind of medication and doesn’t prohibit telemedicine in general. Its aim is simply to make abortions more expensive and more difficult to obtain by restoring a burden of expense and travel—a burden that falls disproportionately on poor and rural women. Another law permits employees of health care facilities, and the facilities themselves, to refuse to provide abortion services. Another prohibits abortions done on the basis of fetal gender, which raises troubling issues about thought crime: it’s not illegal to know the gender of the fetus before an abortion, but it’s illegal to use that knowledge as the basis of a decision to abort, so the crime turns on what’s in the woman’s mind. Another law requires all facilities that offer abortions to post large signs stating, among other things, that the facility is prohibited from coercing anyone into having an abortion. And rounding out the seven is one of the most onerous of the laws, also passed over the governor’s veto: hb 3284, which might be called the Oklahoma Internet Shaming Act of 2010. It mandates that when a woman receives an abortion, the attending physician must answer a thirty-eight-item questionnaire, collecting information about the abortion that will be placed online immediately. The name and address of the patient won’t be posted, but opponents of the law say that in combination several of the responses (age, race, county of residence, number of children, marital status, years of education) will frequently allow particular women to be identified, especially in small communities, and the posting of the information about any woman violates both doctor- 210 the other road to serfdom patient confidentiality and the woman...