Exclusive Video - Judge Rules Abortion Law Unconstitutional

February 19, 2010 - 10:21 pm by David

Five Perspectives - Raw video footage after the ruling - Oklahoma Citizen Exclusive.

Oklahoma County District Judge Dan Owens today (Friday, February 19) ruled House Bill 1595 (Rep. Sullivan and Senator Lamb) unconstitutional.

He reasoned that this measure began with a prohibition against abortion based on the gender of the fetus. Then, he said, HB-1595 branched out into many directions not germane to the original intent of the bill. This branching into multiple subjects violated Article 5, Section 57 of the Oklahoma Constitution which mandates only one subject per bill, Owens reasoned.

Plaintiff Jo Davis, during press interviews, documented the impossibility of knowing the gender of a fetus before over 96 percent of abortions occur in Oklahoma. “The gender of the fetus cannot be determined before 18-20 weeks, even with an ultrasound, and over 96 percent of abortions in Oklahoma occur before 18-20 weeks,” Davis said, citing information posted on the State Health Department’s web site OK2SHARE. “Even after 18-20 weeks, gender determination requires an ultrasound so most women seeking abortions wouldn't know the gender of the fetus beforehand in order to even consider abortion based on gender selection.”

It’s good that this unconstitutional bill got struck down because it appears to be political grandstanding based on false information. Davis thinks this bill was created to allow the politicians involved an opportunity to whip up their base using our taxpayer money as fuel — a quarter million per year to implement the multiple reporting requirements in the bill and the personal information posted on the internet---all of which is not discussed here.