The Oklahoma Legislature is now in session, and many bills have the distinct aim of restricting the rights of women and LGBTQ residents. Sound familiar?
Lone Star State sessions last year, several bills from our neighbors to the north take aim at LGTBQ and women’s rights. For the uninitiated, OklahomaHouse Bill 3120, authored by Seminole Republican Rep. Danny Williams, would amend the Parents’ Bill of Rights allowing them to opt in for sex education and would require schools to establish policies prohibiting the use of certain pronouns.
Then, there’s House Bill 3216, which has made it out of committee. The bill would create a database of patients who received abortion services in the state and ban contraception that could induce abortions or prevent the implantation of fertilized eggs, according to Oklahoma Watch. “Each of these bills comes with dangerous rhetoric that Oklahomans do not have the opportunity to correct on the record, because we live in a state where the legislature has removed public testimony from the legislative process,” Nicole McAfee, executive director of Freedom Oklahoma, told theby email.