Abortion

“Personhood” Back in Oklahoma Legislature

Last year's attempt to pass a "personhood" bill through the Oklahoma legislature was a disaster. Now, it's a second try.

State Representative Mike Reynolds. (News on 6)

Last spring Oklahoma legislators blocked every move Personhood Oklahoma made to force a floor vote on a bill that would grant legal rights to fertilized eggs. Now, with the group unable to get another ballot amendment up for a statewide vote, they appear to be trying the legislative route again.

Will they get better results this time?

State Representative Mike Reynolds has introduced House Bill 1029, the Personhood Act of 2013, which NewsOK calls “virtually identical to one that led to a bitter fight in the House before failing to get a vote on the floor.”

Reproductive rights advocates in the state are hoping that duplicate bill will lead to duplicate dismissal. “In the absolute best-case scenario, Mike Reynolds’ peers will take one look at this photocopied nonsense and sigh. ‘Didn’t we do this already?’ they’ll ask,” writes Pearl at Oklahomans for Reproductive Justice.

Still, with a reproductive-rights hostile legislature and a very anti-choice governor, all it would really take to get a bill to pass this go around is for the key players to not fight each other. The question is, can they manage to make that happen?