Oklahoma lawmaker backtracks pro-life sign bill

Oklahoma businesses will no longer have to post pro-life signs in public restrooms under revised legislation filed last week. Under the amended regulations, only abortion centers will have to post signs directing pregnant women to services dedicated to protecting their unborn children.

Regulations voted on and passed last week would have mandated placement of the signs in public restrooms in all businesses licensed by the state health department.

In a Dec. 16 press release, state Sen. A.J. Griffin said she was responding to businesses’ concerns about the cost of posting the signs, but she confirmed the new rules—set to take effect Jan. 1, 2018 if signed into law—will apply to abortion centers.

The new bill, SB 30, also will “broaden” the health department’s campaign, addressing both pre- and post-natal health concerns and emphasizing social media to reach women.

“This is a compromise with health department officials that will ensure something will happen this year,” Griffin told me today. “The cost estimates [were] very exaggerated. However, a social media campaign drops the cost to nearly nothing and eliminates much of the pushback.”

But could pushback also arise in pro-life quarters? On grounds of violation of conscience, some pro-lifers have opposed a similar strategy taken by abortion rights advocates, who have fought with some success to force crisis pregnancy centers to provide clients a written statement with contact information for state-funded contraception and abortion.

Alissa Manzoeillo, a media assistant with the National Abortion Federation, said NAF president Vicki Saporta was not available today to make a comment. Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America did not respond to requests for comment.

An assistant to Oklahoma Restaurant Association president Jim Hopper, who had said the original legislation was the “wrong way” to get information to women, told me Hopper was in a meeting and could not comment.

Griffin said her bill does not take a political position: “The language is not specific and makes the reader aware that general prenatal services are available.”

Ingrid Duran, director of state legislation for National Right to Life, agreed the bill’s language is “not inflammatory” and would positively impact young women facing an unplanned pregnancy—as she did when she was 16. Duran eventually chose life for her child and said NRLC supports legislation like Griffin’s that would give a “piece of hope to pregnant women” in an abortion center.

“It’s a life-affirming strategy that can empower pregnant women not only to learn about the humanity of their unborn children but to find resources they might otherwise not know about,” Duran said.