Oklahoma! Where the Law Sweeps Women's Privacy Away

On Friday, a judge in Oklahoma City decided to prolong a restraining order blocking the implementation of a law that would require doctors to post private information about women who have abortions online. Never fear -- names won't be included. In fact, that's pretty much the only shred of personal information that won't displayed. Among the things that will appear are a woman's age, race, education, marital status, and reason for seeking an abortion.

Phew, what a relief! Here I thought this was going to be a gross invasion of privacy. Still, it shouldn't be too hard to Nancy Drew your way to a woman's identity with all her other relevant information handily available via the world wide web.

Oklahoma Senator Todd Lamb and supporters claim that, by identifying the reasons women seek abortions, the law will help prevent future unwanted pregnancies. Allow me to cut through this crap and save Oklahoma the estimated $250,000 it will take to implement this law. Women seek abortions for a wide variety of reasons -- all of them highly personal and no one else's damn business. Tada! Now go funnel that money into sex education or a free reproductive health clinic.

You know what will lower the number of abortions in this country? Ensuring that people, especially young people, receive comprehensive sex education early, so that they understand the importance of practicing safe sex, what the risks are, and where they can access quality, affordable birth control. Then -- and here's the tricky part -- make sure they can access quality, affordable birth control.

You know what WON'T lower the number of abortions in this country? Creating a law that requires women to answer a series of intensely personal questions and then posting their answers on a public website!

Senator Lamb, who is campaigning for lieutenant governor on an anti-choice platform, says that the information obtained from this law means "we can better treat, we can better counsel, we can better provide alternatives." He'd rather intimidate women who are already pregnant than address the problem of how to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place. Why bother when it's just so much easier to create the illusion that women seeking abortions are sick?

Why not commission a university to conduct a study, you ask? Because Oklahoma legislators are not actually interested in why these women are seeking abortions -- they're interested in using intimidation tactics to shame women, embarrass women, guilt women, scare women, hound women, out women, and, of course, make it more difficult and uncomfortable for women to obtain an abortion. This is about forcing women to look at ultrasounds and imposing mandatory waiting periods. It's about seeing how far states can go in regulating abortions. It's about chipping away at the foundation of Roe v. Wade.

It is not (repeat: not) about preventing unwanted pregnancies.

The law, which was scheduled to begin on November 1st, has been challenged by the Center for Reproductive Rights as unconstitutional under state law requiring that one piece of legislation deal with only one issue (it deals with multiple aspects of abortion). It is now on hold until a hearing on February 19, 2010. If it does pass, Oklahoma's Department of Health is scheduled to have the website up on March 1, 2010; doctors will be required to begin submitting reports 30 days later.

If the law is struck down, Oklahoma legislators say they will try again next year. Shocker. It's like the end of a really bad horror movie when the villain just won't die.

Photo courtesy of Big Stock Photos.