Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt (R) signed a bill criminalizing the distribution of abortion drugs in the state.
An analysis of House Bill 1186 says the legislation will create a “felony offense for trafficking or attempting to traffic abortion-inducing drugs.” It notes the “impact on state resources is contingent on the number of convictions.”
“Abortion is already illegal in Oklahoma other than to protect the life of a mother in an emergency,” State Rep. Denise Crosswhite Hader said. “What has happened, however, since that has become law in our state, is that people are trafficking abortion-inducing drugs to women who are already in a vulnerable state. That’s unscrupulous, and it needs to stop.
“This bill is about protecting women from the horrible side effects of these pills. It’s also to protect women from being taken advantage of by someone looking to personally profit from the distribution of these pills.”
State Senator David Bullard, the author of the bill’s Senate version, said, “We hear a lot about the trafficking of humans and children and rightfully so. We have worked hard to eliminate this enslavement of people. The trafficking of the abortion pill is no different than human trafficking and possibly worse.”
“It is the largest killer of babies and the greatest threat to motherhood. It is the death sentence to an innocent baby who has been convicted of no crime and a false hope to a mother, soon to kill the child she carries,” Bullard noted. “In fact, the injustice of the abortion pill being trafficked in Oklahoma is a generational loss of Holocaust proportions, and the victims are always twofold.”
