Henry Should Veto Abortion Reporting Bill

(Update: Since this was initially posted, legislators working on the budget said they would appropriate an extra $2.5 million to the Public Safety Department to avoid trooper furloughs.)

State legislators crafted a budget for next year that could lead to state trooper furloughs, but somehow they came up with $280,000 to harass women seeking abortions.

So it goes in red state Oklahoma these days . . .

House Bill 1595, which has passed the House and Senate, requires the state to spend $280,000 to fund a reporting system for all abortions performed in Oklahoma. Under the law, doctors would have to submit detailed information about each woman seeking an abortion. This information— identities would supposedly be protected—would then be published on a public web site.

The bill, which has been supported by the pro-life movement, also makes it illegal to obtain an abortion based on the gender of a fetus.

Gov. Brad Henry should veto the bill. As I wrote earlier in the Oklahoma Gazette, the bill seems designed to harass women seeking abortions and doctors who performed them. Some people have even raised questions about whether women could get identified if they live in a small town.

The bill also seems like the first step in a process that could lead to fully identifying women who have abortions. The information, at least in the immediate future, will obviously be politicized and controlled to some degree by pro-life legislators. If the bill makes it into law, women seeking abortions in Oklahoma should think twice about how their personal information could be used in the future.

The bill primarily targets impoverished women. Women with enough money can always get an abortion in another state while poor women might not be able to travel.

Proponents of the bill say the information is needed to study the abortion issue, but surely there are other ways to collect medical information that guarantee privacy.

The fetus gender issue in the bill is also unnecessary. Do some Oklahoma women seek abortions based on the gender of their fetuses? It seems unlikely.

Meanwhile, the legislative agreement for next year’s budget contains cuts that might force Oklahoma Highway Patrol Troopers to take six furlough days next year, according to NewsOK.com.