OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — In a move that is unprecedented nationwide, an Oklahoma Senator has introduced a bill that would criminalize abortion as first-degree murder.

Sen. Joe Silk, R-Broken Bow, recently introduced S.B. 1118 which adds killing an unborn child to existing murder statutes.

“No person shall perform or induce or attempt to perform or induce an abortion after conception,” it reads. “A person commits murder in the first degree when that person performs an abortion as defined by Section 1-745.5 of Title 63 of the Oklahoma Statutes.”

The bill defines abortion as “the use or prescription of any instrument, medicine, drug or any other substance or device to intentionally kill an unborn human being” and provides the unborn with protection from the moment of conception.

The bill is stated to come as the result of a petition signed by over 30,000 Oklahoma residents, calling for lawmakers to immediately present legislation that would result in a complete end to abortion in the state.

“[W]e hereby respectfully demand that our state government stop protecting the murder of children by abortion within its jurisdiction and establish justice for all pre-born human beings in our state,” the petition reads in part. “We demand that our legislators stop passing laws to regulate abortion and instead outlaw all abortion as murder. ”

“We demand that these changes be made now—not five, ten or fifteen years down the road,” it continues. “In short, we the people of the state of Oklahoma demand the total and immediate abolition of human abortion as the legal, constitutional and moral duty of our elected and appointed officials.”

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The petition had been circulated by the Abolitionist Society of Norman and hundreds of supporters across the country who traveled to Oklahoma to help obtain signatures.

“This bill aims to protect all children from destruction in Oklahoma, and bring Oklahoma law into compliance with the United States Constitution,” the group said in a press release. “This bill unabashedly defies the Supreme Court’s perversion and denunciation of the constitutional right to life, and seeks to establish justice for those being deprived of life without due process of law.”

A similar bill was also recently presented by Sen. Nathan Dahm, R-Broken Arrow, that would revoke the medical license of any physician who performs an abortion.

“Any physician participating in the performance of an abortion shall be prohibited from obtaining or renewing a license to practice medicine in this state,” S.B. 1552 reads. “No person shall perform or induce an abortion upon a pregnant woman. Any person violating this section shall be guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment for not less than one year nor more than three years in the state penitentiary.”

Both bills are scheduled for a hearing on Tuesday before the Oklahoma Senate.

As previously reported, nearly 60 million children have been murdered in the womb since the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade. Abortion was likewise the subject of several legal battles in early America as many lawmakers, lawyers and doctors adamantly fought against it.

In an introductory lecture to his course on obstetrics in 1854, Philadelphia obstetrician Hugh Lennox Hodge stated that an abortionist is a “charlatan, who sustains his existence by the price of blood.” He explained that if a woman were to come to a medical doctor in pursuit of an abortion, “he must, as it were, grasp the conscience of his weak and erring patient and let her know in language not to be misunderstood that she is responsible to her Creator for the life of the being within her.”

“We blush, while we record the fact that in this country, in our cities and towns, in this city, where literature, science, morality and Christianity are supposed to have so much influence; where all the domestic and social virtues are reported as being in full and delightful exercise; even here, individuals, male and female, exist, who are continually imbruing their hands and consciences in the blood of unborn infants,” Hodge said.

“So low, gentleman, is the moral sense of community on this subject,” he continued. “So ignorant are even the greater number of individuals, that even mothers in many instances shrink not at the commission of this crime, but will voluntarily destroy their own progeny, in violation of every natural sentiment, and in opposition to the laws of God and man.”

Editor’s Note: Those wishing to encourage the Oklahoma Senate to abolish abortion may contact the state senators here.

UPDATE: Sen. Silk’s bill was prevented from being heard in the Senate by Republican state leadership. It was recently reintroduced for the 2019 legislative season.

