Oklahoma legislative battle highlights different pro-life strategies

A controversial language change in a pro-life bill has halted its journey through the Oklahoma state legislature. By a 6-3 vote, the Health and Human Services (HHS) Committee last month passed an amended Heartbeat Informed Consent Act. But Republican state Sen. Joseph Silk, who introduced SB 1118, later revised the wording to make any abortion—at any stage after conception—a crime of first-degree murder.

As passed by the HHS committee, SB 1118 would require an abortionist to perform an abdominal ultrasound, which can detect a baby’s heartbeat at about 12 weeks. (A baby’s heart begins to beat with his or her own blood at about three weeks, and a transvaginal ultrasound can detect the heartbeat at about six weeks.) SB 1118 builds on Oklahoma’s original Heartbeat Informed Consent Act, a law passed in 2012 that requires an abortionist to ask a woman if she wants to hear her baby’s heartbeat prior to an abortion. The woman seeking the abortion can decline the offer.

Fetal heartbeat laws passed in Arkansas and North Dakota in 2013 were later struck down in federal courts. In January, the Supreme Court refused to hear either case.

An opportunity for wording changes in the Oklahoma bill came when the HHS committee members expressed concern that SB 1118 did not have a penalty and its “language was a little loose,” Silk told me. He said he worked on those issues, submitting a floor substitute that added the first-degree murder charge and language acknowledging that life begins at conception.

“Legally, we must offer the same protection for that life as any other,” Silk said. “That fact justifies and calls for abortion being classified as murder.”

But Republican leadership in the state Senate so far has not allowed the bill, originally slated for a March 7 hearing, to come to the floor.

Aaron Cooper, a spokesman for Sen. Brian Bingman, the president pro tempore of the Oklahoma Senate, did not address Silk’s revisions. But he told me his state has made significant strides in protecting life thanks to the Senate’s Republican leadership.

“The Senate will continue its efforts to protect the sanctity of life,” Cooper said.

At the national level, Roe v. Wade and its companion case, Doe v. Bolton, effectively legalized abortion through all nine months of pregnancy because of the broadly interpreted mother’s health exceptions. At times, pro-lifers haven’t agreed on the best strategy to reverse abortion on demand. Some promote an all-or-nothing approach, but many believe an incremental approach is more likely to succeed.

“Do we want to make a statement, or do we want to make a difference?” asked Tony Lauinger, chairman of Oklahomans for Life, the state affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee. “We must focus on legislation that has at least some chance of saving unborn lives.”

Even if the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is replaced with a justice who might uphold pro-life legislation, a lot depends on Justice Anthony Kennedy, Lauinger noted.

“In upholding the Partial Birth Abortion Ban, Justice Kennedy’s opinion gave good cause to believe he would allow laws like Oklahoma’s Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act and Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act,” Lauinger said. “But Kennedy has been equally clear that he would not uphold laws that prevent abortions across the board.”

While they don’t always agree on strategy, pro-lifers tackling abortion from different angles agree the fight is far from over.

“I am dedicated to this issue, however long it takes,” Silk said. “In what other area of law do we regulate and protect the premeditated intentional killing of completely innocent life?”