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Oklahoma Legislators Criminalize Abortion

Zygote Abortion

Oklahoma Legislators Criminalize Abortion

Today, the Oklahoma state legislature passed a bill that essentially will ban abortions in their state, despite Oklahoma only having two clinics in the entire state authorized to perform an abortion.

The bill passed without discussion or debate and will now be sent to anti-choice governor Mary Fallin, who has until May 25th to veto the bill, sign it into law, or do nothing (at which point the bill becomes law). This bill is another in a series of more and more restrictive laws impeding the rights of women to choose what they can or cannot do with their bodies.

Lawmakers in support of the bill literally said that they hope it overturns Roe v. Wade.

Who needs a trained medical professional to perform an abortion when you can take a coat hanger and do it yourself, right ladies? It’s time to take control of your own reproductive health. Isn’t that what feminism is all about? Girl power!

The bill’s author, Senator Nathan Dahm, said:

Since I believe life begins at conception, it should be protected, and I believe it’s a core function of state government to defend that life from the beginning of conception.

Stop right fucking there.

“Since I believe.”

Exactly.

Just because you believe that life begins at conception does not make this an objective truth. You are offering your religious-based opinion on a subjective topic for which there is not an objective answer. You can’t use this as a rationale to tell women what they can do with their bodies.

Legislation like this blows my mind. It’s as if we’ve traveled back in time, to a place that women should always be subservient to their man. When people ask “why are you so angry with religion?”, it’s because of shit like this.

Should we even be surprised by things like this anymore? Of course, I’m talking about a legislative body where 44 out of 50 members are men who are making reproductive health decisions for women (the six women were split 3-3 on the vote).

Worldwide, 42 million women have an abortion each year, and roughly half of those procedures are unsafe, resulting in 5 million women having long-term health issues, and another 68,000 women dying each year.

We have observable data showing what happens when countries restrict abortion laws and when the same country relaxes its abortion laws. Romania tightened its abortion legislation in 1966 and saw an immediate increase in abortion mortality. When the law was reverted in 1989, there was a sharp decline in the same ratio.

Romania Abortion Mortality
Source

Similar results were observed in South Africa.

The House also approved a bill to create informational material “for the purpose of achieving an abortion-free society,” whatever the fuck that means.

Life does not start at conception. That just doesn’t make any sense. A zygote is not a person.

If you’re going to put forth this nonsensical argument, then what happens when a fertilized egg fails the implantation stage and doesn’t attach to the uterine wall?

Nearly one third of all pregnancies end in a miscarriage, making God the most prolific abortionist in the history of mankind.

What about ectopic pregnancies, where the fertilized egg implants itself outside the uterus? Of course  in this instance an abortion is allowed, as the mother’s health is in danger.

If you are going to put forward the notion that life begins at conception, then it should not make a difference one way or the other if the mother’s health is at risk. We now have two separate and equally important lives. You’re literally saying that the mother’s life is more valuable than the “child” inside of her. If you truly believe that “life begins at conception,” then you simply cannot be in favor of abortion when it’s convenient. The anti-choice narrative is built upon the naturalistic fallacy, and if you are going to use consistent (but faulty) logic, then you cannot value the mother’s life more than the fetus, whether or not the fetus is viable. In doing so, you’re saying that the fetus actually isn’t a human being in certain instances. You can’t pick and choose with this.

If a family, with the guidance of a medical professional, is able to decide to take another human being off of life support, then how can we say that a woman shouldn’t be able to choose to have an abortion? Again, we’re at this place where you’re picking and choosing when to apply your religious-based logic so that it suits your own personal worldview.

Part of the problem is rooted in abstinence-only sex education. Oklahoma has one of the highest rates of abstinence-only sex education being taught in the United States. It’s also no coincidence that Oklahoma is one of the most “Christian” states in the US. Indeed, abstinence-only sex education has roots in faith-based beliefs. When approximately half of all high school-aged youth report engaging in sexual intercourse, sex education is not the time or place to insert your bullshit ideologies. Teens who take abstinence-only “virginity pledges” have the same rate of sexually transmitted infections as their counterparts who actually know how to put a fucking condom on a banana.

But offering a subjective, religious-based opinion on what someone else should be doing with their body? That’s not how healthcare should work in a free society.

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Written by Dan Broadbent

Science Enthusiast. Atheist. Lover of cats.

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