(Perspective by Harley Woods)
When Justice Amy Coney Barrett began service for SCOTUS on Oct 27. 2020, a concern across the nation was the fate of Roe v. Wade and reproductive rights. States have since then written and approved restrictive laws against abortion. On May 21. 2022, Oklahoma governor Kevin Sitt signed a bill that bans abortion from fertilization. The bill has been cited by news sources and media outlets as the most restrictive ban in the country.
Bans like this only negatively impact people. The only people receiving abortions are those who desire an abortion. It is solely the pregnant individual’s choice whether they want to bear a child or not.
Already, Oklahoma is one of the most difficult and traumatic places to raise a child. Banning abortion forces more children to be born into a state that takes less than minimal measures to ensure safety and security.
Abortion bans also negatively impact the very children these pro-life bills are aimed to protect and ensure lives for. Girls can begin puberty as early as eight years old. The state now declares that she would be a mother and that her new responsibility, rather than to live her own life, is to guarantee the life of another.
Oklahoma is ranked number four in the country for teen birth rate, where 25 in 1,000 births are from teen mothers. The state health department teen birth report for years 1996-2020 shows that teen birth rates impact Black, Hispanic and Native communities most prominently.
Oklahoma is one of 29 states in the U.S. that does not mandate sexual health education and whose regulations on sexual health curricula limit programs to abstinence-only education and heteronormative material. However, the Annenberg National Health Communication Survey cites that only 39% of adults find abstinence-only education to be effective.
In conjunction with the new bill through the “Public Education on the Humanity of the Unborn Child Fund,” abortion is to be taught as killing a living human being.
An article describing sexual health laws, states, “Oklahoma does not require a comprehensive sex education, so it is possible that a student may not learn anything about sex and pregnancy, but may be taught that abortion shall terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.”
This knowledge is contrary to medical knowledge. Obstetricians and reproductive health experts know the idea of an embryo being a “living” person to be, at the very least, multidimensional and nuanced.
The article also states, “Oklahoma City Public Schools (OKCPS) does not provide any sex education to students at any grade level. The administrators decided it was better for the students to focus on college preparedness and state testing.”
Having grown up in OKCPS, I am aware of the condition of state-funded education and the receptivity of students to this education.
The results of state mandated college readiness exams showed that 56% of students had a “below basic” score on 2019 science exams. I have a distinct memory of sitting in the school computer lab receiving our 2017 test results and gaping at the alarming rate of failing scores.
Not only do researchers and educators know that standardized testing does not measure intelligence or aptitude in students, but students of OKCPS know how poorly we are prepared for these tests.
If students were able to access medically accurate information with support of counselors and health educators, they might have more time to be stressed about failing useless and unimportant exams. After all, it is the ACTs and SATs which colleges ask for, not state mandated testing.
A Psychology Today article states, “standardized tests only measure the absence of weakness. They do not measure the presence of strength.” Author Cody Kommers notes several times that the only purpose of a standardized test is to point out where a student falls behind.
The state legislature and the governor prove time and again with each incredulous and restrictive bill passed that Oklahoma is resting on the shoulders of poorly educated adults who are continuing the legacy of failing to provide better for children.
The only way for OKCPS students to get ahead is to do their own research and hope that they have enough time outside of school, extracurriculars and home-life to concern themselves with matters of growth and development.
The number of prevalent negative environmental factors burdening children contributes to their failure to meet an arbitrary success rate. Oklahoma is ranked third in the country for mental illness and second in the country for substance abuse disorders.
Problems like these facing the state are systemic. Abortion bans and poor sexual health curricula contribute to the ways that children growing into adults are unable to rise above the poverty line and beat the endless cycle of adverse childhood experiences.
Rather than putting more money into the apparent inadequate condition of education and mental health in Oklahoma, the state legislature would rather force more people to bear children.
Pro-life legislature is a death sentence in Oklahoma. The way to truly decrease abortion rates is to increase state spending on education, increase statewide support for mental health and substance abuse, initiate adequate and comprehensive sexual health education and many more things.
Call it what it is. “Pro-life” rhetoric is pro-birth, it is ignorant, it is an invasion of privacy, it is severely damaging lives.
Governor Stitt will hear from the people of Oklahoma and feel the heat of our burning hearts.
Published in the Oklahoman Newspaper on June 5, 2022
