Infringement on reproductive rights, especially in conservative states, affects more than just pregnant women and should be discussed on a national level, according to a panel of speakers Saturday at OU.
AT A GLANCE
Current Legislation in Oklahoma Regarding Reproductive Rights:
-HB1402: Would restrict abortions at or after 20 weeks of gestation, instead of 24, because of potential harm to mother and pain to the fetus
-HB1548: Would require stricter licensing and regulation of some abortion clinics and would add penalties for those who do not follow such regulations
-HB2560: Would require a woman to receive materials about fetus 24 hours in advance if she is considering an abortion after 20 weeks of gestiation; would create a website that provided more pro-life information for women considering abortions
-HJR1067: Would add to the Oklahoma Constitution that it is illegal to intentionally kill any innocent person, including use of some birth controls and children created through rape or incest
-HR1401: States that the Oklahoma Legislature does not approve of health insurance plans requiring religious institutions to cover preventative services for women without charging a copay
-SB1692: Would prohibit state entities from contracting with entities that perform abortions using state or federal funds and would cancel existing contracts
-SB1274: Would require a pregnant woman to hear the heartbeat of a fetus before undergoing an abortion
Source: OKLegislature.gov
-SB1433: Would define life as beginning at conception and consider fetuses a person with all rights and privileges
Women shared their individual stories on current reproductive issues in a panel called “Criminalizing Bodies in Red States: How It’s Affecting You.”
Photo by Ally Bert
Lisa Frey Ph.D. (center left), an Associate Professor in the Deptartment of Educational Psychology and an affiliate faculty member in the Women's and Gender Studies Program at OU, speaks with a group of participants of the Take Root Conference on Saturday in the Thurman J. White forum building on campus. Topics discussed at the conference included environmental justice and reproductive justice among other issues.
The panel was part of the Take Root: Red State Perspectives on Reproductive Justices conference, which the OU Women’s and Gender Studies department began developing a year ago. It featured six panels and over 200 guests.
“The Take Root conference sort of emerged from an idea ... to make sort of an annual gathering of reproductive justice folks within these southern states, who are conservative when it comes to reproductive issues,” said Caitlin Campbell, Women’s and Gender Studies program coordinator.
Oklahoma State’s program hosted a similar, smaller conference last year with some sponsoring from OU’s program.
It is important to have a conference like this because more conservative states can be stricter with reproductive issues, but these restrictions often aren’t heard on a national level, Campbell said.
“In the past few years, Oklahoma included, many of the southern and other red states ... have passed a lot of legislation that restricts reproductive choice,” Campbell said. “These states have been sort of ignored in the national discussion of reproductive justice.”
The nuances of recent Oklahoma bills regarding reproduction criminalize women, said Tamya Cox, deputy director of American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma.
“It’s not just ‘We don’t want you to be able to have an abortion,’ it’s ‘If this happens, this is what we’re [going to] do to you — you are now a criminal,’” Cox said.
The Oklahoma Legislature should not make such personal decisions for a woman because it does not know her body best — she does, Cox said.
“These are people who are fundamentalist Christians who think they have the right to run this country and tell you what to do,” said panelist Barbara Santee, who had an abortion in the 1950s when it still was illegal and nearly died from it.
The restrictive abortion laws affect not only women seeking abortion but also could be used against women in cases of miscarriage or stillbirth, said Lynn Paltrow, founder and executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women.
“You can’t have a culture of life unless you value the people who give it,” Paltrow said.
Abortion laws also are one of the few cases in which others can sue a doctor on behalf of the woman, Paltrow said.
“What we’re talking about is treating pregnant women like property,” she said. “It’s not just criminalizing. There’s something even bigger going on.”
Ideally, the conference will become an annual affair, Campbell said.
“It really would depend, in large part, on funding and if we could get these national organizations to fund again,” she said.
It could be possible to rotate the conference between universities, Campbell said.