h/t watertiger

Oklahoma, you’re seriously NOT O.K.:

On Nov. 1, a law in Oklahoma will go into effect that will collect personal details about every single abortion performed in the state and post them on a public website. Implementing the measure will cost $281,285 the first year and $256,285 each subsequent year.

Under H.B. 1595, the state of Oklahoma is going to spend over a quarter of a million of its taxpayers’ dollars annually to try to shame women into foregoing abortions. Isn’t that special? It’s almost enough to make one long for the martini-clouded days before Roe v. Wade, when women only had to deal with the life-threatening dangers of back alley abortions, without the additional stigma of government-sponsored Internet shunning.

The following is the posted information that the Gilead Oklahoma legislators believe will be generic enough to avoid that irksome HIPAA:

1. Date of abortion
2. County in which abortion performed
3. Age of mother
4. Marital status of mother
(married, divorced, separated, widowed, or never married)
5. Race of mother
6. Years of education of mother
(specify highest year completed)
7. State or foreign country of residence of mother
8. Total number of previous pregnancies of the mother

That’s a whole lotta information about the mother, that, while it doesn’t identify her by name, certainly narrows her identity down, especially in the small towns that dot the Oklahoma landscape.

And another thing: Notice anything missing? Go ahead, re-read the list — I’ll wait.

[whistles, files nails, looks up]

Figure it out yet? Bingo! The father, whom we assume had something to do with the pregnancy in the first place, doesn’t have to account for his actions at all. Way to put women in their place, Oklahoma!

Thank goodness this law is being challenged.

Former state Representative Wanda Jo Stapleton, D-Oklahoma City, and Shawnee resident Lora Joyce Davis have decided to fight against these new restrictions in the form of a lawsuit. ” The lawsuit alleges that House Bill 1595 by Sen. Todd Lamb, R-Edmond, and Rep. Dan Sullivan, R-Tulsa, covers more than one subject and thus violates the Oklahoma Constitution ( Tulsa World News) Ranging in areas from abortions based on gender, to the re-defining of several abortion related terms, to creating an entire new job for the OK Department of Health to deal with, this law, is simply doing too much. The bill is set to go into effect on November 1st of this year. However, Davis and Stapleton hope that their lawsuit can delay this law from going into effect until they are able to present their appeal to the Oklahoma courts. This lawsuit comes after the most recent Oklahoma overturn of a 2008 law that would have required women to submit to an ultrasound and description by their doctor of the baby before scheduling an abortion.