Every year the pro-life Republicans come up with a new strategy to prove their pro-life pedigree. This year the popular approach is to go after the sale and distribution of abortifacient drugs. There are at least five bills relating to this approach in the Oklahoma Legislature. Only one is good as originally submitted.
House Bill 3216, by Rep. Kevin West of Moore, says: “No person may knowingly administer to, prescribe for, or sell to any pregnant woman any medicine, drug, or other substance with the specific intent of causing or abetting an abortion.” Unfortunately, his bill is not supported by legislative leadership.
Instead, House Bill 3013, by Rep. Denise Crosswhite Hader, is the one supported by leadership. It passed the House along party lines and awaits a hearing by the Senate. Unfortunately it is largely symbolic since it applies only to individuals selling abortifacient drugs to other individuals. It specifically protects and exempts manufacturers, distributors, pharmacists, and out of State providers.
“There will never be enough statutory fingers and toes to plug all the supply-side holes in the pro-life dike.”
The fundamental problem with this approach in general, even if done right, is that it addresses only the supply of abortifacient drugs while leaving demand untouched. Women currently possess the legal authorization and protection to murder their children by abortion in state statute. Until this license to kill is revoked, no amount of monkeying around with statutes about the sale and delivery of abortifacient drugs will do much good.
As we have documented in previous articles, the means to abortion are cheap and only a click away online, and they would continue to be readily available even if distribution restrictions were passed into law. There will never be enough statutory fingers and toes to plug all the supply-side holes in the pro-life dike.
The real problem and its solution must be addressed on the demand side. How many women would still demand means to an abortion if they knew they might face criminal charges? Both SB 402, the Prenatal Equal Protection Act, by Sen. Warren Hamilton, and SB 1729, the Abolition of Abortion Act, by Sen. Dusty Deevers, provide for the prosecution of a mother who takes the life of her preborn child. Either of these two bills would legally abolish abortion, and the enforcement of such a bill would make abolition a practical reality. No other bill would be needed, other than for added support.
Unfortunately, Republican pro-lifers in leadership do not support the criminalization of all abortion or extending equal protection of the law to preborn humans, so these bills are as doomed as the thousands of unwanted preborn children who will be murdered by their parents this year under the cover of Republican pro-life laws.
Why won’t pro-life politicians address the demand side? Why will they not truly criminalize the act of murder by abortion itself? The pro-life movement has a dark side unknown to most believers. For a deeper dive into the corruption of the pro-life movement, check out my new book Overcoming the Dark Side of the Pro-life Movement.
