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Abortion Law Backers Vow Oklahoma Appeal
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Published: August 19, 2009
HOUSTON — A day after a judge struck down an Oklahoma law requiring women seeking an abortion to see an ultrasound of the fetus and listen to a description of its attributes, the state said it would appeal the ruling, and Republican lawmakers vowed to pass the law again in a different form.
While advocates of abortion rights celebrated the victory in court, they acknowledged the fight against one of the most sweeping anti-abortion laws in the country was likely to continue for months in the Legislature and before the State Supreme Court.
“It is one battle in the war, but the war shall continue,” said Martha Hardwick, a Tulsa lawyer with the Center for Reproductive Rights.
On Tuesday, Judge Vicki L. Robertson of the Oklahoma County District Court ruled the omnibus abortion bill — which lawmakers passed over the veto of Gov. Brad Henry, a Democrat, in 2008 — violated a clause in the State Constitution requiring that bills deal with only one subject. Judge Robertson did not rule on whether the law, which rolled together five separate anti-abortion measures, violated constitutional protections of privacy and freedom of speech.
Charlie Price, a spokesman for Attorney General W.A. Drew Edmondson, said Wednesday that an appeal would be filed with the State Supreme Court. The state will argue that the law does not violate the single-subject rule, because all its parts are germane to abortion, Mr. Price said.
In recent years, several states have passed laws requiring women to undergo an ultrasound before an abortion and at least three — Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi — require doctors to offer the woman the chance to see the image.
But Oklahoma’s Legislature went further. The law would have required the doctor or technician to set up the ultrasound monitor where the woman could see it and then talk her through the procedure, describing the heart, limbs and internal organs.
The woman would be allowed to “avert her eyes,” the law said.
In early stages of pregnancy, when the fetus is tiny, the law would have required the ultrasound to be done vaginally to get a clear image, providers said. No exceptions were made for rape and incest victims.
“Before that mother goes through the procedure, we believe it is positive public policy to give her as much information as possible about that baby,” the bill’s sponsor, Senator Todd Lamb, a Republican from Edmond, said. “She might just change her mind and, who knows, that baby could be a future Nobel Prize winner.”
Opponents of the law, however, said it marked a state intrusion into the private decision making of a woman and her doctor. “Even if you don’t look at the picture, you have to listen to the description,” said Anita Fream, the head of Planned Parenthood of Central Oklahoma. “It almost reaches the stage of seeming cruel to me.”
The law never went into effect because of the legal challenge.
Beyond mandating ultrasounds, the law would have allowed doctors to refuse to take part in an abortion for religious reasons, required signs in clinics saying abortions cannot be coerced and prohibited “wrongful-life lawsuits,” in which a plaintiff argues that a disabled child would have been better off not being born. It also put restrictions on the morning-after pill.
Judge Robertson ruled the Republican majority in both houses had bound up too many different measures in one bill, violating a constitutional provision intended to protect lawmakers from the common problem of having to vote for a provision they dislike to pass a bill they support.
Republican legislative leaders said that if the state did not win on appeal, they would break the law into five bills and pass them in the session that begins in February.
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Published: August 19, 2009
HOUSTON — A day after a judge struck down an Oklahoma law requiring women seeking an abortion to see an ultrasound of the fetus and listen to a description of its attributes, the state said it would appeal the ruling, and Republican lawmakers vowed to pass the law again in a different form.
While advocates of abortion rights celebrated the victory in court, they acknowledged the fight against one of the most sweeping anti-abortion laws in the country was likely to continue for months in the Legislature and before the State Supreme Court.
“It is one battle in the war, but the war shall continue,” said Martha Hardwick, a Tulsa lawyer with the Center for Reproductive Rights.
On Tuesday, Judge Vicki L. Robertson of the Oklahoma County District Court ruled the omnibus abortion bill — which lawmakers passed over the veto of Gov. Brad Henry, a Democrat, in 2008 — violated a clause in the State Constitution requiring that bills deal with only one subject. Judge Robertson did not rule on whether the law, which rolled together five separate anti-abortion measures, violated constitutional protections of privacy and freedom of speech.
Charlie Price, a spokesman for Attorney General W.A. Drew Edmondson, said Wednesday that an appeal would be filed with the State Supreme Court. The state will argue that the law does not violate the single-subject rule, because all its parts are germane to abortion, Mr. Price said.
In recent years, several states have passed laws requiring women to undergo an ultrasound before an abortion and at least three — Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi — require doctors to offer the woman the chance to see the image.
But Oklahoma’s Legislature went further. The law would have required the doctor or technician to set up the ultrasound monitor where the woman could see it and then talk her through the procedure, describing the heart, limbs and internal organs.
The woman would be allowed to “avert her eyes,” the law said.
In early stages of pregnancy, when the fetus is tiny, the law would have required the ultrasound to be done vaginally to get a clear image, providers said. No exceptions were made for rape and incest victims.
“Before that mother goes through the procedure, we believe it is positive public policy to give her as much information as possible about that baby,” the bill’s sponsor, Senator Todd Lamb, a Republican from Edmond, said. “She might just change her mind and, who knows, that baby could be a future Nobel Prize winner.”
Opponents of the law, however, said it marked a state intrusion into the private decision making of a woman and her doctor. “Even if you don’t look at the picture, you have to listen to the description,” said Anita Fream, the head of Planned Parenthood of Central Oklahoma. “It almost reaches the stage of seeming cruel to me.”
The law never went into effect because of the legal challenge.
Beyond mandating ultrasounds, the law would have allowed doctors to refuse to take part in an abortion for religious reasons, required signs in clinics saying abortions cannot be coerced and prohibited “wrongful-life lawsuits,” in which a plaintiff argues that a disabled child would have been better off not being born. It also put restrictions on the morning-after pill.
Judge Robertson ruled the Republican majority in both houses had bound up too many different measures in one bill, violating a constitutional provision intended to protect lawmakers from the common problem of having to vote for a provision they dislike to pass a bill they support.
Republican legislative leaders said that if the state did not win on appeal, they would break the law into five bills and pass them in the session that begins in February.
