News

Abortion would be treated as homicide under legislation being pushed in the US state of Oklahoma.

Senator Joseph Silk, author of Senate Bill 13, told news station Coco 5 that his Senate Bill 13 is an equal protection bill.

“[It] finds life as being at the moment of conception and offers life equal protection under the law and therefore classifies any intentional killing of unborn children as homicide,” said Republican Senator Silk.

“A couple of deals, I mean, people ask for the rape and incest exception.  There is not that because we wanted it to be an equal bill. 

“Rape and incest are horrible things but you don’t murder a child because of the crimes of the father and mother. The medical exception there, it’s not specifically outlined, but in the bill, the language of the bill it does not prevent a doctor from performing basic medical triage.  It just says a physician needs to exhaust all his resources to treat both lives equally. If he is not able to save both mom and mother [sic] obviously he will not be charged with murder whatsoever.”

A fellow Oklahoma Senate Republican, Greg Treat said he did not support the legislation:

“I agree with abolishing abortion.  If I thought that Senate Bill 13 would save a single human life, I would be on board fully.  I am still of the mind that it is fatally flawed,” said Senator Treat.

But Senator Silk said that he did not agree with Senator Treat’s position.

“We’ve had discussions, where he thinks it’s fatally flawed is, Senator Treat does not believe the state of Oklahoma has the authority to essentially enact this legislation because of the Roe v Wade opinion, which we just disagree on that,” said Senator Silk.

“And I have my basing off of slavery.  At one point the Supreme Court said salves were private property and had no rights and we have rectified that.

“…so the federal government is limited and the Supreme Court offers opinions and they are not all powerful.  And the state of Oklahoma does have the right to do it and we just have different opinions on that,” he added.

Asked if the idea is to get the matter before the Supreme Court [to overturn Roe v Wade], Silk responded:

“You know, that’s one idea. And so there’s some language in the bill.  I’m of the opinion that the state needs to just enact the legislation and the government needs to uphold the constitution and basically stop killing unborn children.  However, there is a thought that if you were to take this legislation and send it all the way up to the Supreme Court, it would overturn Roe v Wade. So there’s two different ways of thinking.  But that is, a lot of supporters actually want to see Senate Bill 13 be the bill that overturns Roe v Wade.”

Senator Silk said that he is not a fan of an alternative legislative proposal, House Bill 1182.

“I view unborn children as humans just like you and I are.  House Bill 1182, you know, at the most it takes doctor’s licenses away for a year and there’s a $500 fine for murdering a human child.” 

Senator Silk was asked about a viewer’s question which read:

Do you identify as a female? Are you able to carry a nine-month pregnancy? No. Ok.  Then how about you go author a bill that can pertain to you and stop playing God.

But Senator Silk shut down the logical fallacy of the argument:

 “I’m a legislator, I’m not a child.  But we write laws and pass laws and vote on laws pertaining to children.  And that’s exactly what this bill is.  We’re talking about a living human being and wanting to protect it from murder, and so whether you’re a male or female it does not matter whatsoever.  You are trying to protect innocent children.

Senator Sillk was also asked about the issue and rape, how it was traumatic, and had it put to him that he was mixing the issue of church and state.

But Senator Silk calmly responded that it comes down to people having to decide whether an unborn child is a living human being that deserves protection or is it not.

“If you believe a child needs to be murdered when it is conceived in rape, you will have to adjust your standards a lot on who deserves protection and what innocent children are allowed to be murdered and which ones aren’t.  I am of the opinion, again those are horrible atrocities when they happen, however it is still a human life and it still deserves protection,” he said.