Is the Oklahoma Law a Clever Ploy, or a Legitimately Distinct Type of Abortion Regulation?
One could say, cynically, that the people who press for legislation of the sort adopted in Oklahoma are utilizing any available means of reducing a woman’s opportunity to obtain an abortion. This is why, for example, it is typically the same people who consistently lobby for all manner of abortion restrictions. Yet, as I have discussed in this column, the pro-life community has now passed a very different abortion restriction in Oklahoma. The law in question does not — in contrast to most abortion restrictions — limit providers’ ability to do what they want for their patients. And it also does not — as most abortion restrictions do — make it more difficult for a woman who no longer wants to remain pregnant to terminate her pregnancy. It instead works (through doctor-focused incentives) to reduce abortions by women who wish to remain pregnant, but who do not want to have a child with a genetic anomaly. For someone who believes that a fetus is no different from a newborn baby, such a
