Friday, October 09, 2009

Oklahoma Reverts To Neanderthal State


Just when you thought Oklahoma, the Land Of Sally Kern, couldn't be a more backward thinking neanderthal out-of-touch semi-square state in the middle, they sink just a wee bit lower.

On November 1, 2009, a new law will go into effect in Oklahoma. This new law will collect personal details about every single abortion performed in that state and post them on a public website. Yes, folks, Oklahoma will take your personal, private medical history and let everybody know you business.

Bad as that sounds, and believe me, it sounds bad because it will one day lead to Oklahoma publicly posting who is HIV+ or has AIDS or cancer or anything else they want to publicize, but implementing this new bill will cost the state $281,000 the first year, and then a quarter of a million dollars for every subsequent year.

Apparently they have an excess of state funds in Oklahoma because they couldn't think of a better use for these millions of tax dollars. So, let's take a gander at the questions these women must answer, shall we:

  • Date of abortion
  • County in which abortion performed
  • Age of mother4. Marital status of mother(married, divorced, separated, widowed, or never married)
  • Race of mother
  • Years of education of mother(specify highest year completed)
  • State or foreign country of residence of mother
  • Total number of previous pregnancies of the mother, including live births, miscarriages and abortions.

Now you may notice that they don't ask for the woman's name, or address, or what they deem as any information that would "specifically identify the patient," but just these eight questions could be used to identify the patient if she lived in a small town, or community in Oklahoma.

Oklahoma, you're not Okay.

Not okay at all.

6 comments:

  1. Is there any reason for this? Did anyone give a reason? Research,tracking data, public reporting laws of public funds? Or is it just to intimidate women?

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  2. How can this be legal?

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  3. Aside from being rampantly inappropriate, I would question the legality.

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  4. sheer mess, Bob. What's really going down there?

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  5. I fully expect someone to step in and cite HIPAA rules here. Any information about a patient is privileged information, and their posting of this (even if it doesn't include patient name...as you pointed out, there are identifying characteristics for anyone who lives in a small town) is HIGHLY illegal.

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  6. Can't see any logic to this!

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