OKLAHOMA LAWSUIT BETRAYS WOMEN

Group files suit against Oklahoma's ban on sex-selection abortion

and comprehensive abortion-reporting requirements

WASHINGTON -- Today, the Center for Reproductive Rights filed suit against a single-issue abortion law in Oklahoma - set to go into effect on November 1, 2009 - that bans abortion for the purpose of sex-selection and that enhances the state's abortion-reporting requirements.  The law was passed by large majorities in the Oklahoma legislature and signed by Governor Brad Henry in May.

"It is absurd, bordering on incredible, that an organization that says it cares about 'women's rights' would challenge a law that seeks to help women and their children," said Mary Spaulding Balch, J.D., National Right to Life director of state legislation.  "It is unfortunate, even in this enlightened age of women, that many cultures here and abroad favor males over females.  With this sex-selection ban, the state of Oklahoma has declared that female children are valued as highly as male children."

In addition to the ban on sex-selection abortion, the abortion law also contains the nation's most comprehensive abortion-reporting provisions which seek to analyze, among other things, the reasons women seek abortion in the first place. 

"Abortion is the most under-regulated, under-investigated, and under-researched procedure  done on American women today, yet it is the most common and most potentially dangerous to their health and well-being," Balch added.  "If a state can get a handle on the reasons women have abortions, it can lead to better programs that will make it easier for women to have their children rather than resort to abortion."

The text of the law is available here: http://webserver1.lsb.state.ok.us/2009-10bills/HB/HB1595_ENR.RTF.

The case is Davis v. W.A. Drew Edmondson.

The National Right to Life Committee, the nation’s largest pro-life group is a federation of affiliates in all 50 states and 3,000 local chapters nationwide.