The Oklahoma State House approved a new bill Tuesday that would create a new fund dedicated to spending money on public anti-abortion efforts, especially in schools. The idea, according to the bill, is to “clearly and consistently teach that abortion kills a living human being and is against public policy.”
The Tulsa World reports that the new bill passed 64-12, although one-fourth of the legislature skipped the vote altogether. HB 2797, which was introduced by Rep. Ann Coody, seen above, and which you can read in full here, creates a new fund, the very descriptively-named “Public Education on the Humanity of the Unborn Child Fund.” The money in there will be used, among other things, to “establish, operate and maintain a program to educate students in grades nine through twelve about the humanity of a child in utero.”
The bill also places an emphasis on trying to get women not to abort by creating a list of agencies “available to assist a woman through pregnancy, upon childbirth and while the child is dependent:”
The Department shall index this information geographically and shall make it readily accessible on the Department’s website. The website shall include the following statement: “There are many public and private agencies willing and able to help you to carry your child to term and to assist you and your child after your child is born, whether you choose to keep your child or to place him or her for adoption. The State of Oklahoma strongly urges you to contact them if you are pregnant.”
The bill would also require new public service announcements about abortion being bad:
Develop and distribute educational and informational materials, including audiovisual materials, to provide public information through public service announcements, media and otherwise for the purpose of achieving an abortion-free society. Such materials shall be developed from the most readily available, accurate and up-to-date information and shall clearly and consistently teach that abortion kills a living human being and is against public policy;
The bill has been sent to the State Senate; if approved, it would take effect November 1.
Oklahoma state law doesn’t require any sex education whatsoever, and a 2014 report found that sex ed classes varied widely in quality and whether they even existed. A bill dubbed the Safe Relationships Act died in committee this month; it would have established a once-a-year public school program to help teach parents how to talk to their children about “pregnancy prevention, abstinence practices, prevention of sexually transmitted infections and diseases, and safe and healthy relationships.”
Contact the author at anna.merlan@jezebel.com.
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Rep. Ann Coody. Screengrab via YouTube/Safe America Foundation