Oklahoma Senate blocks bill defining abortion as murder
A bill that would have classified abortion as first-degree murder will not move forward in Oklahoma.
The bill, introduced by Oklahoma State Senator Joe Silk, said, “A person commits murder in the first degree when that person performs an abortion.”
“No person shall perform or induce or attempt to perform or induce an abortion after conception,” the bill, S.B. 1118, said. That includes the “prescription of any instrument, medicine, drug or any other substance or device to intentionally kill an unborn human being.”
photo Peter anemoneprojects via Flickr
The penalty for first-degree murder in Oklahoma is the death penalty or life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Originally, S.B. 1118 would have required abortionists to detect a fetal heartbeat and provide stronger informed consent to women considering abortion.
In that form, SB 1118 passed the Health and Human Services (HHS) Committee last month by a 6-3 vote.
Sen. Silk changed the text of the bill to punish abortion as murder after a petition for such a bill garnered 30,000 signatures.
“It’s still being stopped, which is very very frustrating,” Sen. Silk told KFOR-TV. “Are you really pro-life if you can actually come out and oppose this bill for no reason?”
He said his bill only stated that unborn children “deserve the same legal protection as any other living human being.”
Critics claimed that the U.S. Supreme Court justices would likely overturn Sen. Silk’s bill, Silk believes proposals like his will pressure the Supreme Court to review, and eventually overturn, its past abortion decisions.
“The state of Oklahoma must stop passing ‘pro-life’ laws that say when you can murder your child, and instead pass laws that call abortion murder,” Sen. Silk said. “The legislature must stand up and force the courts to uphold the Constitution which protects life.”
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