Abortion in Oklahoma

Abortion in Oklahoma is legal. 51% of adults said in a poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

The number of abortion clinics in Oklahoma has declined over the years, with eighteen in 1982, eleven in 1992 and three in 2014.  There were 4,916 legal abortions in 2014, and 4,709 in 2015.

Terminology
Main article: Abortion

The abortion debate most commonly relates to the "induced abortion" of an embryo or fetus at some point in a pregnancy, which is also how the term is used in a legal sense.[note 1] Some also use the term "elective abortion", which is used in relation to a claim to an unrestricted right of a woman to an abortion, whether or not she chooses to have one. The term elective abortion or voluntary abortion describes the interruption of pregnancy before viability at the request of the woman, but not for medical reasons.[1]

Anti-abortion advocates tend to use terms such as "unborn baby", "unborn child", or "pre-born child",[2][3] and see the medical terms "embryo", "zygote", and "fetus" as dehumanizing.[4][5] Both "pro-choice" and "pro-life" are examples of terms labeled as political framing: they are terms which purposely try to define their philosophies in the best possible light, while by definition attempting to describe their opposition in the worst possible light. "Pro-choice" implies that the alternative viewpoint is "anti-choice", while "pro-life" implies the alternative viewpoint is "pro-death" or "anti-life".[6] The Associated Press encourages journalists to use the terms "abortion rights" and "anti-abortion".[7]

Context
See also: Abortion in the United States

Free birth control correlates to teenage girls having a fewer pregnancies and fewer abortions. A 2014 New England Journal of Medicine study found such a link.  At the same time, a 2011 study by Center for Reproductive Rights and Ibis Reproductive Health also found that states with more abortion restrictions have higher rates of maternal death, higher rates of uninsured pregnant women, higher rates of infant and child deaths, higher rates of teen drug and alcohol abuse, and lower rates of cancer screening.[8] The study singled out Oklahoma, Mississippi and Kansas as being the most restrictive states that year, followed by Arkansas and Indiana for second in terms of abortion restrictions, and Florida, Arizona and Alabama in third for most restrictive state abortion requirements.[8]

According to a 2017 report from the Center for Reproductive Rights and Ibis Reproductive Health, states that tried to pass additional constraints on a women's ability to access legal abortions had fewer policies supporting women's health, maternal health and children's health.  These states also tended to resist expanding Medicaid, family leave, medical leave, and sex education in public schools.[9] According to Megan Donovan, a senior policy manager at the Guttmacher Institute, states have legislation seeking to protect a woman's right to access abortion services have the lowest rates of infant mortality in the United States.[9]

Poor women in the United States had problems paying for menstrual pads and tampons in 2018 and 2019. Almost two-third of American women could not pay for them. These were not available through the federal Women, Infants, and Children Program (WIC).[10] Lack of menstrual supplies has an economic impact on poor women.  A study in St. Louis found that 36% had to miss days of work because they lacked adequate menstrual hygiene supplies during their period.  This was on top of the fact that many had other menstrual issues including bleeding, cramps and other menstrual induced health issues.[10] This state was one of a majority that taxed essential hygiene products like tampons and menstrual pads as of November 2018.[11][12][13][14]

History

One of the biggest groups of women who oppose legalized abortion in the United States are southern white evangelical Christians.  These women voted overwhelming for Trump, with 80% of these voters supporting him at the ballot box in 2016. In November 2018, during US House exit polling, 75% of southern white evangelical Christian women indicated they supported Trump and only 20% said they voted for Democratic candidates.[15]

Legislative history

By 1950, the state legislature would pass a law that stating that a woman who had an abortion or actively sought to have an abortion regardless of whether she went through with it were guilty of a criminal offense.[16]

The state passed a law in the 2000s banning abortions after 22 weeks because they alleged that fetus can feel pain.[17] The state was one of 23 states in 2007 to have a detailed abortion-specific informed consent requirement.[18] The law required materials be created by the state's health development.[19] In the informed consent materials given to women in Idaho, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Texas required by statute, the materials used graphic and inflammatory language. The law also required the woman be told how far advanced her pregnancy was.[20] Arkansas, Minnesota and Oklahoma all require that women seeking abortions after 20-weeks be verbally informed that the fetus may feel pain during the abortion procedure despite a Journal of the American Medical Association conclusion that pain sensors do not develop in the fetus until between weeks 23 and 30.[20] Informed consent materials about fetal pain at 20-weeks in Arkansas, Georgia and Oklahoma says, "the unborn child has the physical structures necessary to experience pain."  The Journal of the American Medical Association has concluded that pain sensors do not develop in the fetus until between weeks 23 and 30.[20]

A 2009 Oklahoma law, overturned by a federal court in 2010, would have required doctors to report information from a 37-question form about every woman receiving an abortion to the state health department for publication in an online registry.[21] A lawyer for the Center for Reproductive Rights, a co-plaintiff in the lawsuit challenging the law, said the law would have made public potentially identifying details about women, and was intended to dissuade women from seeking abortions.[22] Todd Lamb, who sponsored the law as a state senator, called it "essential in protecting the sanctity of life" and "pro-life".[21] A fetal heartbeat bill (SB 1274) was signed into law by then-Oklahoma governor Mary Fallin in April 2012 that requires an abortion provider to offer a woman the opportunity to hear the conceptus's heartbeat before ending the pregnancy, and applies when the conceptus is at least eight weeks old. The bill took effect in November 2012.[23]

In 2013, state Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) law applied to medication induced abortions in addition to abortion clinics.[24] In 2016, Oklahoma state legislators passed a bill to criminalize abortion for providers, potentially charging them with up to three years in prison.[25][26][27] On May 20, 2016, Governor Mary Fallin vetoed the bill before it could become law, citing its wording as too vague to withstand a legal challenge.[28][26][27] The state legislature was one of four states nationwide that tried, and failed, to pass a fetal heartbeat bill in 2016.[27]

In 2017, the state was one of six where the legislature introduced a bill that would have banned abortion in almost all cases.  It did not pass.[27] They were also one of eight states trying to pass a fetal heartbeat bill that year.[27] The state legislature tried and failed to ban abortion again in 2018. They also tried and failed to pass a fetal heartbeat bill that year.[27] In mid-May 2019, state law banned abortion after week 22.[26]

Judicial history

The US Supreme Court's decision in 1973's Roe v. Wade ruling meant the state could no longer regulate abortion in the first trimester.[16] On November 4, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by the state of Oklahoma to the overturning, on constitutional grounds, of a bill intended to ban the practice of terminations of early pregnancies via medications.[29]

In March 2020, Governor Kevin Stitt signed an executive order to limit elective medical procedures, later confirming that all types of abortion services were included, except for those necessary in a medical emergency or to "prevent serious health risks" to the pregnant person. On April 6, federal judge Charles Barnes Goodwin blocked the executive order, ruling that the state acted in an arbitrary, unreasonable, and oppressive way, which posed an undue burden on abortion access in Oklahoma.[30]

Clinic history
Number of abortion clinics in Oklahoma by year.
See also: Abortion clinic

Between 1982 and 1992, the number of abortion clinics in the state decreased by seven, going from eighteen in 1982 to eleven in 1992.[31] In the period between 1992 and 1996, the state saw no change in the total number of abortion clinics.[32] While only three states saw gains in this period, this state was one of four to see no changes with 11 abortion clinics in the state in 1996. In 2014, there were three abortion clinics in the state.[33] In 2014, 96% of the counties in the state did not have an abortion clinic. That year, 54% of women in the state aged 15 – 44 lived in a county without an abortion clinic.[34] In 2014, 51% of adults said in a poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.[35] In 2017, there were 6 Planned Parenthood clinics in a state with a population of 882,108 women aged 15 – 49 of which 1 offered abortion services.[36]

First new clinic to provide abortion care opened in Oklahoma City in 2016, Trust Women Foundation opened Trust Women Oklahoma City.[37][38]

Statistics

In the period between 1972 and 1974, there was only 1 illegal abortion death in Oklahoma.[39] In the same period, the state had an illegal abortion mortality rate per million women aged 15 – 44 of between 0.1 and 0.9.[39] In 1990, 328,000 women in the state faced the risk of an unintended pregnancy.[31] In 2010, the state had 0 publicly funded abortions.[40] In 2013, among white women aged 15–19, there were  abortions 460, 110 abortions for black women aged 15–19, 0 abortions for Hispanic women aged 15–19, and 140 abortions for women of all other races.[41] In 2017, the state had an infant mortality rate of 7.7 deaths per 1,000 live births.[9]

Number of reported abortions, abortion rate and percentage change in rate by geographic region and state in 1992, 1995 and 1996[32]
Census division and stateNumberRate% change 1992–1996
199219951996199219951996
US Total1,528,9301,363,6901,365,73025.922.922.9–12
West South Central127,070119,200120,61019.61818.1–8
Arkansas7,1306,0106,20013.511.111.4–15
Louisiana13,60014,82014,74013.414.714.710
Oklahoma8,9409,1308,40012.512.911.8–5
Texas97,40089,24091,27023.120.520.7–10
Number, rate, and ratio of reported abortions, by reporting area of residence and occurrence and by percentage of abortions obtained by out-of-state residents, US CDC estimates
Location Residence Occurrence % obtained by

out-of-state residents

 Year Ref
No. Rate^ Ratio^^ No. Rate^ Ratio^^
Oklahoma4,8086.3904,9166.4928.72014[42]
Oklahoma 4,813 6.3 91 4,709 6.1 89 8 2015 [43]
Oklahoma 4,409 5.7 84 4,294 5.6 82 8.0 2016 [44]
^number of abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44; ^^number of abortions per 1,000 live births

Abortion rights views and activities

Protests

Women from the state participated in marches supporting abortion rights as part of a #StoptheBans movement in May 2019.[45]

Footnotes
  1. According to the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade:
    (a) For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgement of the pregnant woman's attending physician. (b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health. (c) For the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgement, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.
    Likewise, Black's Law Dictionary defines abortion as "knowing destruction" or "intentional expulsion or removal".


References
  1. Watson, Katie (20 Dec 2019). "Why We Should Stop Using the Term "Elective Abortion"". AMA Journal of Ethics. 20: E1175-1180. doi:10.1001/amajethics.2018.1175. PMID 30585581. Retrieved 17 May 2019.
  2. Chamberlain, Pam; Hardisty, Jean (2007). "The Importance of the Political 'Framing' of Abortion". The Public Eye Magazine. 14 (1).
  3. "The Roberts Court Takes on Abortion". New York Times. November 5, 2006. Retrieved January 18, 2008.
  4. Brennan 'Dehumanizing the vulnerable' 2000
  5. Getek, Kathryn; Cunningham, Mark (February 1996). "A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing – Language and the Abortion Debate". Princeton Progressive Review.
  6. "Example of "anti-life" terminology" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-27. Retrieved 2011-11-16.
  7. Goldstein, Norm, ed. The Associated Press Stylebook. Philadelphia: Basic Books, 2007.
  8. Castillo, Stephanie (2014-10-03). "States With More Abortion Restrictions Hurt Women's Health, Increase Risk For Maternal Death". Medical Daily. Retrieved May 27, 2019.
  9. "States pushing abortion bans have highest infant mortality rates". NBC News. Retrieved May 25, 2019.
  10. Mundell, E.J. (January 16, 2019). "Two-Thirds of Poor U.S. Women Can't Afford Menstrual Pads, Tampons: Study". US News & World Report. Retrieved May 26, 2019.
  11. Larimer, Sarah (January 8, 2016). "The 'tampon tax,' explained". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on December 11, 2016. Retrieved December 10, 2016.
  12. Bowerman, Mary (July 25, 2016). "The 'tampon tax' and what it means for you". USA Today. Archived from the original on December 11, 2016. Retrieved December 10, 2016.
  13. Hillin, Taryn. "These are the U.S. states that tax women for having periods". Splinter. Retrieved 2017-12-15.
  14. "Election Results 2018: Nevada Ballot Questions 1-6". KNTV. Retrieved 2018-11-07.
  15. Brownstein, Ronald (May 23, 2019). "White Women Are Helping States Pass Abortion Restrictions". The Atlantic. Retrieved May 26, 2019.
  16. Buell, Samuel (1991-01-01). "Criminal Abortion Revisited". New York University Law Review. 66: 1774–1831.
  17. Times, The New York. "Abortion Restrictions in States". archive.nytimes.com. Retrieved May 25, 2019.
  18. "STATE POLICY ON INFORMED CONSENT FOR ABORTION" (PDF). Guttmacher Policy Review. Fall 2007. Retrieved May 22, 2019.
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  26. Tavernise, Sabrina (2019-05-15). "'The Time Is Now': States Are Rushing to Restrict Abortion, or to Protect It". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 24, 2019.
  27. Lai, K. K. Rebecca (2019-05-15). "Abortion Bans: 8 States Have Passed Bills to Limit the Procedure This Year". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 24, 2019.
  28. "Gov. Fallin vetoes bill that would make performing an abortion a felony". KFOR.com. 2016-05-20. Retrieved 2016-05-20.
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  37. https://apnews.com/b10cb8844abb4486ae2eb7f7b8d66224
  38. https://trustwomen.org/clinics/clinics-overview
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