Oklahoma pro-life strategies

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday, the 8th of June, 2023. You’re listening to The World and Everything in It and we’re so glad you are! Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

First up: diverging strategies among pro-lifers in Oklahoma. Last week, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that two laws protecting babies from abortion in the state are unconstitutional. The opinion cited a March ruling that blocked enforcement of a third pro-life law.

Abortion businesses are still shut down in the state because a fourth law—from way back in 1910—is still in effect. It protects babies from abortion except to preserve the mother’s life.

REICHARD: Some people think the newer protections could have survived state court review had more pro-lifers rallied around a bill that died in a recent legislative session. But there’s the rub. Can pro-lifers agree on how to use laws to protect the unborn? WORLD’s life beat reporter Leah Savas has the story.

LEAH SAVAS, REPORTER: Oklahoma State Sen. Julie Daniels found out about the state Supreme Court decision the way most people do: by reading the news.

JULIE DANIELS: Honestly, I was very angry. And I was very sick to my stomach about what had happened, knowing that we might have been able to prevent them being bold enough to take this additional step.

A bill she sponsored in the session that ended in May would have clarified the state’s multiple laws protecting unborn babies from abortion. She thinks passing that would have prevented this ruling.

DANIELS: I had warned that this could happen. I certainly did not want it to happen. And I believe that, since this decision was handed down within a week of us leaving the Capitol, that the Supreme Court was watching to see if we would take action. And I believe, and others do, that we left a vacuum.

But some Oklahoma pro-life lawmakers strongly opposed the bill.

DANIELS: The point of disagreement was, of course, the rape and incest reported to law enforcement exception.

Now, some pro-lifers believe it’s wrong to put exceptions in a law protecting the unborn, because it still puts some babies at risk of abortion. But others support these exceptions as a way to get more middle-of-the-road voters on board with pro-life legislation. They consider it key to avoiding pro-life losses down the road.

Right now, Oklahoma law only has exceptions to save the life of the mother, and if it stays that way, Daniels and others fear more voters will listen to pro-abortion groups. Those voters might support a ballot measure adding a right to abortion to the state constitution which would invalidate any existing protections for unborn babies in the state.

In 2022, pro-life groups nationwide lost in six abortion-related ballot measures. Senator Daniels and the group Oklahomans for Life fear another defeat like that in their state.

DANIELS: I have to face the reality—not as I wish it to be but what I think we're facing on the ground in Oklahoma—either an initiative petition question to make abortion part of the Constitution, or a Supreme Court acting as a legislature outside of their authority to do the same or something similar. Again, there are those of us who have thought, as you have, about this issue for decades. The general public has had half a century of being told that this is a right, which it never was.

Despite these concerns, other pro-life lawmakers opposed her bill. Rep. Jim Olsen estimated that adding rape and incest exceptions would legalize the killing of 200 unborn babies a year.

JIM OLSEN: Number one, that is a very speculative guess that this would even help us. Related to that, the left is going to run a State Question at some time, regardless of what we do. And then thirdly, these are human lives we're talking about. And I don't think it is properly within our purview, as legislators to decide, oh, those 200 babies over there, we can just let them die. I don't think we can do that. I don't think we should do that. The whole approach is a very weak and defeatist approach. We're backing up before we even show up for the fight—before there even is a fight.

After last week’s state Supreme Court ruling, he and Sen. Nathan Dahm said they still oppose Daniels’ bill. But they acknowledged the need for some amendments to the existing medical emergency language.

NATHAN DAHM: We would use the exact same phraseology as the 1910 statute, which says preserve the life of the mother. And so we're going to try and use that exact same language, and basically back the court into a corner since they already upheld that language.

But he sees the threat that the state Supreme Court still poses to the future of unborn babies in Oklahoma.

DAHM: All indications are that the Oklahoma Supreme Court did this in an attempt to lay the groundwork so that they can create a right to abortion on demand.

If that happens, Dahm said district attorneys should ignore the state supreme court and enforce the law anyway. And he says the state legislature should impeach those justices for violating their oaths of office.

A state ballot measure also concerns Dahm, but he’s more confident in voters than he is in the State Supreme Court.

DAHM: Depending on how the state question is drafted, if Oklahomans were adequately informed on it, no, I do not believe the majority of Oklahomans would vote for a right to abortion to be added to our Oklahoma constitution.

Meanwhile, Sen. Julie Daniels is calling on other pro-life lawmakers to be realistic.

DANIELS: My greatest concern is that we, we are looking at the world through rose colored glasses. And we can't do that in Oklahoma. I’m now living in a post-Roe world where legislatures need to make decisions—how are you going to protect children and keep abortion out of your constitution? And that then forces me to consider what the general public—voters—would think was reasonable or unreasonable in terms of exceptions. Because once you put an abortion in your constitution, I think it'd be very, very difficult to get people to remove it. My goal is to stop that from happening.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leah Savas.

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