Worst state law nominee: Oklahoma

From Lynn Harris in Salon, beginning November 1, doctors who do abortions will have to fill out a 34-item questionnaire and send it to the State Department of Health. Some of the questions are:

• Date of abortion 
• County in which abortion is performed
• Age of mother
• Marital status of mother 
• Race of mother
• Years of education of mother
• Number of previous pregnancies, live births, miscarriages and induced abortions, and what methods were used, what prescription drugs were taken
• Why the abortion was sought
• Insurance coverage and payment method
• What kind of information was provided to the woman

Harris points out that the questions seem designed more as political research in how to make abortion illegal than sociological research in how people behave.

Then, because the state of Oklahoma is so committed to open government and full disclosure of all information, they will post it on their website, not in aggregate but as individual records of abortion. They say it doesn't violate anyone's privacy rights because the names aren't posted, but in a small town, that information would be enough to identify any woman who had an abortion.

This is another example showing that what they really want to do is punish women who have more (or different) sex than they do.