In Oklahoma, Another Example of Small-Government Conservatives Backing Government Overreach

While much of the nation was focused on the Alabama State Supreme Court’s controversial decision regarding in vitro fertilization last month, Oklahoma lawmakers were engaged in an equally troubling matter, just as insidious and ominously Orwellian: a bill that would allow the state to create a database of every person who has an abortion in the state.

Under the bill’s original language, H.B. 3216 , any physician who performed a “pre-viability separation procedure” (translation: abortion) had to report it to the Oklahoma State Department of Health along with the date, gestational age, and reason for the abortion.

Further, the bill would have required the department “to establish a confidential system” to identify women who had a procedure — not by name, but by assigning each woman a “unique patient identifier.” Under the bill, a woman’s identity could be released to authorities via a court order if legal action is deemed necessary. By whom is not clear. The abortion police, perhaps.

The bill also prohibited the distribution of “any medicine, drug, or any
other substance prescribed or dispensed with the intent of inducing
an abortion.” Physicians who knowingly violated this section of the bill could have their license suspended or revoked for a year and could be sued by the state for malpractice.

A companion bill, H.B. 3013 , would make delivering or possessing abortion-inducing drugs a felony, with penalties of up to $100,000 in fines or 10 years in prison.

Oklahoma bans abortion except to save the life of the mother. There are no exceptions for rape or incest. It is one of several states with laws stipulating that life begins at conception, or in some cases, fertilization.

But there’s good news: Blowback has