Oklahoma's Department of Health is Now Required by Law to Promote an ‘Abortion-free Society’

“The State of Oklahoma strongly urges you to contact them if you are pregnant,” is a pretty terrifying sentence that you will find on the state’s Department of Health website in a just a few months.

But that’s only a small part of what a new bill, quietly signed into law earlier this week by Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin, will require the Oklahoma DoH to do in the service of dismantling women’s reproductive rights. The bill, which goes into effect on November 1, states that the DoH must:

“Develop and distribute educational and informational materials to provide public information through public service announcements, media and otherwise for the purpose of achieving an abortion-free society.”

The DoH will also have to work with the Department of Education to create, “education programs regarding the humanity of the unborn child.” The school boards at least have the right to choose whether or not they will implement these “instructional programs.”

The information the DoH provides to the public in compliance with this mandate must also be “scientifically verifiable.” So, fine, the DoH will just have to get new science.

All these great new facts about women’s bodies will be good for justifying this stipulation of schools that participate in the program: “no program or state employee may refer any student to a medical facility or any provider for the performance of an abortion.”

Three weeks ago, Gov. Fallin vetoed a bill that would have made it a felony for doctors to perform abortions, which sounds great, until you hear her reasoning: “too vague.”

This new bill is nothing if not diabolically clear.