By Journalist Alexandria Willard (OSU)
Before the House recessed for lunch this afternoon, a bill was heard regarding the repeal of O.S. §861, which states, “Every person who administers to any woman, or who prescribes for any woman, or advises or procures any woman to take any medicine, drug or substance, or uses or employs any instrument, or other means whatever, with intent thereby to procure the miscarriage of such woman, unless the same is necessary to preserve her life shall be guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment in the State Penitentiary for not less than two (2) years nor more than five (5) years.” The statute, written in 1910, was written before women were given the right to vote, and the fact that it still stands means that men wrote a bill based on a woman’s body, without the presence of any women in the chambers.
Hensley’s (TU) bill, Bill No. TU-501, also known as, “Women Are Not Without Political Power” Act of 2023, was written in order to repeal this, in order to “put the right to vote in the hands of women”. McPherson (OSU), a member of the proponency, said “It allows for our modern legislature to instead vote on this issue.”
When asked as to why she wrote the bill, Hensley said, “I think it is unfair to have a segment of a population to be governed by a law where they had no voice in creating. If you go back even to the time of the revolution, the basis of the revolution was “dont make laws about us that we had no say in” and I feel like this bill that I brought is following in that spirit of “if you want to legislate our bodies, at least let us have a say in what that legislation may be.”
Bringing such a highly sensitive and controversial topic to session was a bold move by the representative, but it was not for nothing. This bill was highly debated, causing an immense amount of caususing and bringing a sort of tension into the room.
After Hensley (TU) gave her author’s explanation, delegates eager to get to lunch, were attempting to hurry up and recess, raising a motion to waive time for questioning, causing an uproar in the body. Other delegates were quick to defend the author, as they believed she should be able to have time to explain her bill when in time for questioning.
As the time for questioning closed, debate was brought up. The first argument from the opponency, by Baughman (SE), was, “Please vote ‘NO’ on the interest of time.”
Speaking to delegate McPherson (OU), he was asked how he felt about the bill. He said, “Being 100% honest, legislation from 1910 governing women’s bodies has no place in a legislature in modern. Our legislature has currently in it women who should be able to vote and should be able to decide what happens to their bodies.” He also brought up the time period in which the original statute was written, “1910 women weren’t allowed to vote, there were major restrictions on people of color voting, Chinese people weren’t allowed in the country due to the Chinese exclusion act which wasn’t overturned until the later 1900’s.” The last issue McPherson touched on was representation, “If we are going to pass legislation governing anyone’s body, it needs to be representative of the people of oklahoma. People in urban areas do not get the same amount of representation as the people in the rural areas, causing there to be a super majority, in which women in urban areas are not properly represented for their views on abortion, abortion rights, women’s rights, and women’s bodily autonomy, therefore they are being overly regulated.”
Mitchell (OSU) brought a laugh to the room today. As he stood at the podium to give his side of the debate for the opponency, he held up a sign that said ‘Vote Yes!’. In violation of decorum, he was quickly excused, but got a much needed laugh from the delegates in a heated debate. When asked what inclined him to hold up the sign supporting Hensley’s bill he said, “I walked up to the proponency side and saw how long the list was and said well that sucks…so I walked back to the other side and said I’m gonna waste every single second they got.
After the bill was passed with 45-7 house vote, Hensley was asked how she felt about the bill moving to the senate, she said, “Rock and roll, bring it on baby!”