Oklahoma Law Violating Women’s Privacy Rights With Abortion Struck Down

Mar 15th, 2010 | By | Category: Abortion Rights

An Oklahoma law passed in 2009 by the state legislature was struck down as unconstitutional by the District Court in Oklahoma.  The law violated the Oklahoma constitution’s “single-subject” rule, which states that a law passed by the Oklahoma legislature can not address too many different topics in one bill.

The law would have created a web site to track information on women seeking an abortion.   The women would be required to fill out personal information about their past and present relationships, financial situation, and why they are seeking an abortion on the website.  Critics of the law have stated that the information could easily be used to easily identify specific individuals, especially in rural communities, and allow people to single the women out for harassment since the information would be available to the public online.

Doctors would have also be forced to report information about every abortion to the Oklahoma Department of Health.  The information included information about the cost of the abortion, the woman’s relationship statue, educational level, number of previous pregnancies and abortions, the women’s age, and other personal information.  Doctors who did not provide this information would have faces criminal penalties and their medical license revoked.

The website alone to track and target the women seeking abortion would have cost tax payers around $300,000 per year to maintain.

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  1. [...] on a list somewhere,” Morgan told RHRC. Just as with the mandatory ultrasound bill, Texas is following in the footsteps of Oklahoma with the personal information survey. There, the law was struck down as [...]

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