The State House of Representatives in Oklahoma recently passed HB 1595. It elicited a reaction.
Two Oklahoma women are challenging a new state law set to take effect next month that requires publication of an “Annual Abortion Report” and forces doctors to give details about their patients under threat of criminal sanctions and loss of their medical license, according to a suit in Oklahoma County Court. The Oklahoma law, H.B. 1595, also changed definitions of abortion terms, used terms already thrown out by a court and barred certain procedures for the first time, according to the filing.
H.B. 1595 changed several statutory definitions, banned abortions sought “solely on account of the sex of the unborn child,” imposed new reporting requirements on physicians who administer abortions or treat patients for complications of abortions, and created new, and expensive, responsibilities, including enforcement of state laws on abortions and gathering and reporting of statistics on abortions, state agencies and medical boards. The law will take effect Nov. 1.
There are many complaints about the new law, but chief among the complaints registered by groups, including ThinkProgress, is that the information that doctors are required to file for the report will function to identify the women having the procedure performed. The groups allege that the new law is a round about way to scare mothers into avoiding the procedure. Therefore, the groups allege, the law violates a constitutionally protected right to privacy, and it unconstitutionally coerces citizens to avoid a behavior that is otherwise legal.
Government coercing citizens to not do something that is legal… sounds familiar… anyone got a light?
Progressive Left hypocrisy aside, upon further scrutiny, 33 Bits of Entropy, a data analysis blog, argues that the way the data is collected will not serve to identify the women. If any of you are data geeks and want to chime in with your opinions, I would love to hear it.
For full disclosure, I admit that I am deeply opposed to the practice of abortion. I believe that Roe v. Wade, and the subsequent cases upholding it, were decided upon a foundation of bad legal precedent, chief among them the idea that the Constitution’s penumbra creates a protectable right to privacy. It does not, and the assertion that it does is nothing more than judicial activism, in my opinion.
The United States was founded upon a belief in “natural law” i.e., rights inferred upon human beings simply for existing.
We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…
If one must guess about the status of a fetus, one should guess that it is life. To do otherwise would be to risk a holocaust over an uncertainty. And for the record, I also oppose the death penalty for similar reasons. Government should not kill even killers. To paraphrase Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins, our compassion is important because that’s what separates us from them.
All that said, I have a problem with this State House Bill. Whether or not the data collection will reveal the identity of the women in question, and whether or not the procedure itself is abominable, the government should not be collecting private medical data for publication. If we allow this, where is the limit?
In order for a government to perform any action, it must have that power enumerated unto it through the founding documents of that very same government. While I believe that private persons do not – the Griswold case notwithstanding – have a protected right to privacy in a Constitutional penumbra, neither does the government have a right to intrude into the lives of citizens unempowered to do so. What is the justification for this data collection, other than possessing accurate data? Is “accurate data” something that the government can use as justification for any action other than the census head count? If we allow the government to use improper means to achieve an acceptable end (curtailing abortion), history teaches us that government will continue to use improper means, whether or not the end continues to remain acceptable.
It is not enough to achieve the correct ends, but we must get there the correct way.
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