The last of the pro-life bills Oklahomans For Life has worked to have enacted during this session has now passed the Oklahoma legislature and gone to Governor Kevin Stitt for his signature. He has indicated his support for the bill.
A two-million-dollar appropriation for the Choosing Childbirth Program, originally in HB 2592, was transferred to the state budget bill, HB 2765, and approved by the Senate this week after passing the House last Friday. The bill will provide much-needed funds to pro-life pregnancy resource centers which help vulnerable women during their pregnancies and after their babies are born.
The Choosing Childbirth Program will provide funds for services such as ultrasounds, medical exams, counseling, parenting classes, maternity care, etc., without interfering in any privately-funded, faith-based activities of the pregnancy centers. These crisis pregnancy centers are on the front lines of the pro-life movement, providing crucial help to expectant mothers and saving their babies from abortion.
The other major pro-life bills passed by the Oklahoma legislature this session and signed into law by Governor Stitt include the following:
SB 614 provides that an abortion patient be given information about the possibility of reversing the intended effects of a medication (chemical) abortion. Medical science has developed a method for reversing the effects of a medication abortion and saving an unborn child’s life when only the first drug in the two-step process of a medication abortion has been ingested by the mother. Hundreds of babies lives have been saved by this method when a mother has changed her mind about continuing the abortion procedure.
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HB 2591 prohibits the state from granting Medicaid funding to any health-care provider that has failed to report statutory rape as required by mandatory child-abuse reporting laws. Child molesters who impregnate their minor victims sometimes use abortion as a means of covering up the evidence of their crimes. Abortionists frequently perform abortions on minor girls, without parents’ knowledge, when a statutory rapist brings the girl to an abortion facility and pays for the abortion.
SB 108 protects against assisted suicide by ensuring accuracy in reporting the cause of death on death certificates. Promoters of legalizing assisted suicide, seeking to conceal the growing harm and pressure that such utilitarian laws inflict on the vulnerable, the elderly, the depressed, and persons with disabilities, are encouraging those participating in assisted suicide to cover up what is actually occurring by reporting an underlying illness, instead of suicide, to hide the true cause of death in such cases. Causing the sick and vulnerable to feel that their lives are not worthy, or that they are a burden, sends the not-so-subtle message that – as former Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm once infamously put it – they have a “duty to die and get out of the way.” A prerequisite for preventing the lethal practice of assisted suicide from gaining a foothold in Oklahoma is honest reporting of the actual cause of death so the perpetrators cannot hide what they have done.
These vitally important pro-life bills became law because so many of you contacted legislators to urge their support. Thank you for being the voice of the voiceless unborn child, and a defender of the vulnerable against assisted suicide
