Senator Dusty Deevers Files Bill to Abolish Abortion in Oklahoma
OKLAHOMA CITY, OK - Senator Dusty Deevers has filed SB 456, the Abolition of Abortion Act, which would criminalize the act of abortion as homicide and provide equal protection to all preborn children from the moment of fertilization.
In recent years, Oklahoma Republicans have enacted various pro-life laws, including a “heartbeat bill,” regulating abortions after roughly six weeks and a “ban” at conception, which prohibits abortionists from performing surgical abortions. However, abortion remains legal in the state because mothers enjoy blanket legal immunity to murder their preborn babies at any stage in the pregnancy.
Since 21 Okl. St. § 691(D) gives mothers special murder rights over their own children, the abortion genocide is continuing unabated in Oklahoma. In 2023, about 4,000 Oklahoma babies were aborted in clinics outside of Oklahoma, with an additional estimated 2,864 babies killed on Oklahoma soil in self-managed abortions by mothers. Therefore, in 2023, about 6,864 Oklahoma babies were murdered in abortion, representing a roughly 57% increase year over year from 2021.
The legislative fight to abolish abortion in Oklahoma began in 2016 when then-State Senator Joseph Silk introduced the state’s first bill of equal protection. In 2021, following Joseph Silk’s departure from the Senate, Senator Warren Hamilton carried the bill, which was voted down by the Oklahoma Health and Human Services Committee.
While abolitionists have often struggled to gain traction in state legislatures dominated by establishment Republicans, abolitionists in Oklahoma have made real, tangible gains in the state. In late 2023, abolitionist pastor, Dusty Deevers, decisively defeated three Republican opponents in the special election for Oklahoma’s 32nd Senate district. Additionally, SB 456 is the first Oklahoma abolition bill with a House author: Representative Gabe Wooley.
Since assuming office, Senator Deevers has been an outspoken advocate for preborn children. As Senator Deevers recently wrote, “Equal protection legislation simply recognizes the basic truth that preborn image-bearers of God are equally valuable as born image-bearers of God and removes abortion as an exception in homicide laws, holding all individuals accountable under the same standard.”
Senator Deevers, Senator Hamilton, and Representative Wooley are on the political front lines of the war against abortion. If you live in Oklahoma, please contact your state legislators and ask them to co-author SB 456.
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The Guttmacher Institute
https://faa.life/sma, Journal of the American Medical Association