Sen. Dusty Deevers’ (R-Elgin) second attempt at legislation that would adjust the state’s definition of homicide to include abortion failed in the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday with a vote of six to two. The bill would have allowed women to be prosecuted.
Through Senate Bill 456, also known as the “Abolition of Abortion Act,” Deevers said he was seeking to extend equal protection to “preborn children” under the law. The bill would have removed two pieces of statute:
- An exception to what homicide includes: “Acts which cause the death of an unborn child if those acts were committed during a legal abortion to which the pregnant woman consented.”
- A stipulation: “Under no circumstances shall the mother of the unborn child be prosecuted for causing the death of the unborn child unless the mother has committed a crime that caused the death of the unborn child.”
Deevers referenced what he said is a “massive loophole in Oklahoma’s pro-life laws” where women can access abortion-inducing drugs from out-of-state through the mail.
“She can buy abortion pills, premeditatedly know exactly what she's doing, look it up online, make the phone call, wait a few days, get them in her mailbox, take them from her mailbox to her house, unpackage them and ingest the pill. … This is all premeditated action," Deevers said. "But our current law has a loophole that says she will not be prosecuted if she takes the life of her own child. We have a protected class of murderer in our state.”
Senate Judiciary Chair Brent Howard (R-Altus) asked Deevers if this bill would account for women who travel out of state. Deevers said it would depend on what the courts might do. An estimated 4,000 Oklahomans traveled out-of-state to obtain an abortion in 2023.
Howard questioned how that would be enforced, wondering if that might mean forcing women to take a pregnancy test before they drive out of state and when they return. Deevers said that’s not a requirement in the bill and he thinks “that’s beyond the scope of law.”
“So what we are looking at, though, is looking into every package they receive to make sure that there's not these prescriptions of pills to every pregnant woman?” Howard asked.
Deevers said the bill is simply offering due process “to all lives.”
Senate Judiciary Vice Chair Todd Gollihare (R-Kellyville) pressed further, asking how a case related to this bill would be proved. Deevers said the difficulty of enforcing laws is no reason to not move forward with “just law.”
Gollihare said charges related to Deevers' bill fall into the category of first-degree murder, which can be punished by death, imprisonment for life without parole or imprisonment for life. Deevers said he was aware of that.
“If abortion is prenatal homicide, and I believe it is, that's the question that's before us. Is abortion prenatal homicide, and should it be treated the same as … murdering a born person?” Deevers said.
Deevers also said his bill could extend to abortion providers.
“Are you saying the abortion provider would be an accessory to murder?” Gollihare asked.
“It depends on the situation, the specific situation,” Deevers said. “If the woman went into, currently, it’d have to be something like a back-alley abortion, and an abortion provider did that, then the courts would make a determination on the measure of fault in that situation.”
Sen. Shane Jett (R-Shawnee) debated in favor of the bill. He thanked Howard for hearing it and said he believes it is a “very important conversation to have.”
“It gets to the very fundamental essence of what it is to be human,” Jett said. “And the conversation needs to be had because there are consequences to the decisions that we make against human beings.”
Gollihare said he “does not see Christ” in Deevers’ bill.
“Why are we not going after companies? Why are we not doing that?” Gollihare said. “Your bill does nothing to eliminate the constitutionally protected exception for life of the mother, nor deal with abortion pills, traveling interstate commerce or women traveling interstate. This bill does not address the issues that you said you were trying to address.”
“I disagree with you on the path, not the destination. I cannot go with you down this road of executing women,” Gollihare added.
Howard said he wanted to echo what Gollihare said.
“Do we subject those same women that oftentimes are making the most difficult decision of their life now to a capital offense, to where they are going to be punished by the state?” Howard said. “I think that that's a step too far. I think that it is through Jesus’ love that we will stop abortions. I think that it is through wanting children. It's through correcting the system that we have so that we don't have one of the worst foster systems in the United States.
We need to show our love to everyone that is already here too though, so that they make a better decision without the threats of their life being taken away, their life forfeited.”
Last year, when Gov. Kevin Stitt was asked about Deevers’ first iteration of the “Abolition of Abortion Act,” he said that was “something I don’t even want to get into now.”
“We want to be a very pro-family state, pro-life state. We want to support the mothers. We want to support children,” Stitt said during a legislative session press conference last year. “Specifics on any bills that are still being talked about – I think there’s 3,000 bills that are filed every year – I don’t even know who did it or what. From what you said, that doesn’t sound like something I’d be supportive of.”
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