What In The FUCK IS This Shit? (OK Abortion Law)

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/20/new-oklahoma-abortion-law-violates-patient-privacy-critics-charge/
"Abortion rights advocates are lashing out at a new law in Oklahoma that in less than two weeks will require doctors to release detailed information -- which will be posted on a public Web site -- about all women who have abortions in the state.

The law, which will take effect on Nov. 1, compels the Oklahoma Department of Health to publish data online on all abortion patients -- including the woman's race, marital status, financial circumstances, years of education, number of previous pregnancies, and her reason for seeking the abortion. Doctors who fail to provide such information will be criminally penalized and stripped of their medical licenses.

The Statistical Reporting of Abortions Act has outraged many abortion rights activists who say it is a blatant violation of patient privacy rights and is meant to intimidate women from seeking abortions. The law also prohibits the use of abortion for sex-selection.

"The law itself is contrary to our Constitution," said Lora Joyce Davis, an Oklahoma resident who, along with former state Rep. Wanda Jo Stapleton, has filed a lawsuit over the measure."



Once it happens, it's too late. The clock is ticking till Nov. 1st.

Edited to add my apologies for the link. Saw this on Bartcop.

I can't bring myself to click on that garbage

I edited it a bit. Found it on Bartcop, but hopefully there's a better link.

it is sheer intimidation of women

Just sayin'.

talking about this bs piece of legislation got, because the people who were saying it apparently didn't get what a violation of HIPPA this is, not to mention woman-hating bs pure and simple.

did you actually READ the THIRTY-SEVEN questions that this law dictates? that's right--THIRTY-SEVEN intrusive, woman-hating, how DARE you think you have any rights over your own body nonsense that passed for legislation in the great state of OK--

I am so damned sick of "well, gee, they didn't actually ask for her name" bs. No, they asked for everything else, and it is NONE OF THEIR FUCKING BUSINESS--the ONLY point of this bs is to shame women, to make them afraid to have a LEGAL MEDICAL PROCEDURE.

I wonder how many men would be so casual if THEY had to fill out similar information when they got their viagra scrips--their penile implants, their vasectomies?

It's actually waaaaay more than 37 questions, for gathering data on abortion.... I'm fine with that, however. I also think some of this data will actually come back to bite them in the ass, once they actually have numbers on how many women are too poor, scared (etc.) to have children. You might have only counted the 37 major numbered parts, without realizing that, oh, question 15 is huge (reasons for abortion), and can have a whole bunch of sub-answers.

Questions, along with the resulting required reports are here:
http://www.sos.state.ok.us/documents/Legislation/52nd/2009/1R/HB/1595.pdf

As far as "shaming" goes, I don't subscribe to the belief that abortion is shameful, or vasectomies, or ED. It's medicine.

and just for the record, I have read the questions--all of them, and even included the link.

are you trying to provoke arguments, or are you truly so clueless that you do not understand what this law is designed to do? on second thought, don't bother--we already know the answer.

No wonder OK is so fucked up, if the response to gathering information is fall back on whacko claims, without actual, oh.... data.

It's like dealing with gun-nuts who consider collecting any info about being shot to be a violation of the 2nd amendment.

choicers responsible for this piece of bs legislation, and EXACTLY what their intentions are, having dealt with them for my entire pro-choice, women's rights-supporting life.

For example, one of the question groups (#10) includes "partial birth abortion" as a procedure. Since that isn't an actual medical procedure, what the data will eventually show is that such a procedure *never* happens in Oklahoma.

Question group 11 asks if the infant was "born alive" during an abortion. Again, the data will come back as showing that this never, ever, happens.

Question group 15, by asking for reasons, actually sets up a large number of valid (according to the state, since they're asking) reasons for abortion. This data, once published, is totally going to change the debate. The only way it could end well for anti-choicers if if their delusions were actually true.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/10/judge-bars-restrictive-oklahoma-abortion-law-requiring-patient-data-to-be-posted-online.html

Looks like a judge has barred it from taking effect, hopefully forever.

I cannot believe many doctors would be willing to go along with it - it's pure crap

x(

There were may threads on this. But it's always good to have a reminder. :)

I presented at a national convention yesterday, and have been burning the candle at both ends for over a month. I gotta get back with it!

Can't have too many reminders about oppressive government. :)

:)

:hi:

No names, house addresses, SSN, etc... *however* (and this is the basis for judge barring it for now), if there was only one 28 year old married black female with 4 kids living in a given area serviced by a doctor, it's possible to identify the person based on such generic data.

you think it is okay for the state to not only have this information, but to make it public.

How many abortions are the result of rape.
How many abortions are the result of poverty.
How many abortions are the result of school stigma.
Whether being married affects abortion rates.
...etc.
Knowledge can shape social policy (and voting), and as long as these numbers *aren't* known, the rabid right, will continue to make shit up about abortion being lightly treated by patients, or that fetuses are frequently alive post abortion, or that a 5-week old fetus feels pain, or that children often hide abortion from their parents (etc. etc.).

But, that's just my opinion, others can see the data they're gathering here:
http://www.sos.state.ok.us/documents/Legislation/52nd/2009/1R/HB/1595.pdf

(And I already pointed out upthread that it's not 37 questions. It's a lot more.)

here's a dollar, go buy a clue.

No facts, no data, just lies?

No way is this going to stand under Federal law. The only problem is that people are going to be miserable under it while it's being challenged.

That's got to be a superseding law over Oklahoma.

The question is, what the fuck is the matter with Oklahoma?

Get Rogers & Hammerstein to write a play about that!

of people who jumped the gun to grab Indian lands in the Cherokee Strip.
Oklahoma was also a favorite place for outlaws from Arkansas, Missouri, Texas, etc., to escape from the long arm of the law

I guess my US history is weak when it comes to manifest destiny and what the pioneers did beyond what seems to have been glorified.

people are challenging it and there are lawsuits. I don't have a link, I live in Oklahoma and have been closely watching local news.

That would be treating these women like criminals.

..... That state's politicians are trying to make the ones in Texas and South Carolina seem sane.

redder than almost any other. I worked for a company there and might have been the only liberal in the company.

HuffPo:Oklahoma Abortion Law: Details To Be Publicly Posted Online

Rawstory: Oklahoma abortion law ‘like undressing women in public’

Tulsa World: Strict Oklahoma abortion laws spark court battles

I haven't heard what our Dem Governor Brad Henry has said about possibly vetoing. I would think he'd be seriously considering doing so. Idiotic, draconian, misogynistic law aimed to please the fundies and their "make the slut pay" mindset.

and will give them less useful information than they can currently get for free from the CDC.

of the threads on DU when rachel and others mentioned it.

(questions themselves start about page 8)

http://www.sos.state.ok.us/documents/Legislation/52nd/2009/1R/HB/1595.pdf

Thanks for challenging me, though. I'm a lot more aware of the actual text, as compared to some of the breathless spin people have been applying to it.

edit: Typo

I used to date a woman getting her Phd degree in ethics, specifically, the ethics of medicine, as applied to disease and genetics research. She now works for the CDC in Atlanta in her field. While we were engaged, we went through an abortion together. We talked about it on moral, intellectual, religious, and genetic (etc.) grounds. I've also guarded clinics and spent more than a few days and nights with friends who had recently aborted, taking care of them when their health was riskier.

In addition, my older brother is an anthropologist, dealing with marginalized native cultures, and my younger brother is an EMT.

My life, and my family, swims in the waters of ethics, medicine, research, and science.

"Never have to face"? No, I think about, and face, these issues. Constantly. It's just part of my life.

have to deal with having an abortion on YOUR body in this woman-hating climate.

all of the information surrounding you doesn't really seem to have given you a clue about what women actually face in a culture that is trying to destroy women's right to reproductive autonomy. you have supposedly been a clinic escort--and you still don't seem to get it.

I only disclosed that I was engaged to a woman, and went through an abortion with her.

Assumptions are tricky things.

Oh, and I happen to think US society is over-regulating *everybody's* reproductive autonomy, in a long lost hope for a never-real belief in an mythical XX and XY, male and female (sex and gender are NOT the same things), married-for-life, household, free of divorce, with perfect children...

part that would outlaw the use of abortion for sex selection? While I personally find it extreme and rather disturbing to abort a fetus because of its sex, how could a law like that even be enforced? If abortion is legal, the mother can simply deny she's having the abortion for sex selection. How is it possible to prove otherwise? The whole thing is ridiculous.

That's spin. What it *does* do is require a doctor to ask if the fetus' sex was a reason for abortion.

There's a whole lot of crap data out there on this one, people claiming that "it does A, because A is related to B, and B is related to C, and they ask a doctor to fill out a checkbox on a form about C".

What happens then? is that when the law takes effect?

Check my LA Times link upthread.

because this has nothing at all to do with our right to control our own bodies.

I was reading it on Bartcop, and it pissed me off, so I posted it here. I did find an LA Times link, but not much else. I apologize again for the faux link.

the "journalists" that composed the title should apologize - not you.

:(

Okla. Abortion Publicity Law Blocked by Court
By Susan Elan

WeNews correspondent

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Enforcement of an Oklahoma law that will publicize an unprecedented amount of personal information about women who undergo abortions has been delayed by at least one month, to Dec. 4, as part of a legal challenge.

(WOMENSENEWS)--An Oklahoma law mandating that detailed information about patients who have abortions be published on a state Web site was blocked by legal action on Monday.

The law was scheduled to take effect Nov. 1.

To challenge the state constitutionality of the law, the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights filed a lawsuit on behalf of two Oklahoma women.

The center's spokeswoman Dionne Scott said a temporary restraining order that stops enforcement was granted late Monday by Oklahoma County District Court Judge Twyla Mason Gray so that she could "look further into the case."

The law, House Bill 1595, requires physicians to ask patients, described as "mothers," up to 37 personal questions, including their age, marital status, race, years of education, number of prior pregnancies, reason for the abortion, method of abortion and payment and whether an ultrasound was performed.

Former state Rep. Wanda Jo Stapleton, an Oklahoma City Democrat who brought the lawsuit with Lora Joyce Davis, a resident of Shawnee, Okla., applauded the court granted reprieve.

.....

http://www.womensenews.org/story/reproductive-health/091020/okla-abortion-publicity-law-blocked-court

The state that had been a communist stronghold a few generations ago now has America's Abortion Stasi.

The Repubs here still think it's 1994.

There wasn't a whisper in the press about this that I heard or saw until it had already passed, and nobody I know here in Oklahoma knew about it either :grr:

Repugs are on the side of sex offenders, pedophiles, rapists, and warmongers, so why shouldn't they lend a hand to stalkers as well?

Trying to recall if I've ever read online stats about every single guy in a state who's ever had a vasectomy, for instance.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/04/business/04prescribe.html
http://wcs.state.tn.us/MFS/PgHtm_statauth.html
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-71963070.html

It's definitely a process that needs watchdogs, and a lot of thought, though.

What therapeutic benefit will this information provide? Or is this a collective "hall of shame", even with no names attached?