Vol. 33, No. 2 www.OkForLife.org October 2008
State Senate Key to Unborn Child’s Future;
Republicans Consistently Defend Life
As pro-life Republican U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe is
defending his seat in Congress against pro-abortion
Democrat Andrew Rice, a simultaneous battle rages for
majority control of the Oklahoma state Senate, currently
split 24-24 between Republicans and Democrats.
The state Senate contest has serious ramifications for
the unborn child. All 24 Republicans are pro-life; of the
24 Democrats, about one-third are pro-life, one-third are
pro-abortion, and one-third have mixed voting records.
The majority party will set the legislative agenda, name
the committee chairmen, and organize and run the Senate.
In major races, pro-life Republican Dan Newberry
is opposing incumbent Democrat Nancy Riley of Tulsa
(on eight key Senate votes the past two years, Senator
Riley voted pro-abortion four times [see p. 2], pro-life
three times, and was absent once, when she was the only
senator missing [votes at www.OkForLife.org]);
Page 2
Oklahomans For Life Letter
www.OkForLife.org
October 2008, page 2
An Open Letter
To the Husband of
Senator Nancy Riley
Jerry Riley, husband of state Senator Nancy Riley,
took exception to our writing in the July Oklahomans For
Life Letter that “Senator Riley voted pro-abortion four
times” on key votes on the Senate floor over the past two
years. Below is our response.
Dear Jerry,
Your complaint about our description of Nancy’s
votes deserves a reply. Nancy did vote pro-abortion four
times on the Senate floor, as our July newsletter said, and
her votes (posted on our website, www.OkForLife.org)
prevented the pro-life bill from becoming law.
The legislation at issue, Senate Bill (SB) 714, was
introduced to get government out of the abortion business
by restricting the use of state facilities or state employees
for the performance of non-lifesaving abortions.
We described Nancy’s votes, not her position. Votes
are more important than positions because votes are
concrete actions that have tangible effects.
The member of Congress whose position you
compared to Nancy’s position has, in fact, voted pro-life
100% of the time during his 22 years in Washington. In
spite of his taking the “position” that abortion should be
legal in the case of rape or incest, that is rarely the way the
issue presents itself for a vote. The individual you referred
to has proven his priorities through his actions: on scores
of votes over more than two decades in Congress, he has
come down on the side of life 100% of the time.
Seldom, in Congress or in the legislature, is there an
isolated, separate vote on abortion in the case of rape or
incest. So a lawmaker who favors a rape or incest
exception is faced with a broader question: what shall my
priority be – voting against a pro-life bill on the grounds
that a very small number of abortions might occur
following rape, or voting pro-life because over 99% of the
unborn children affected were not conceived through rape.
There have been over 50 million babies aborted in
the United States since 1973.
I’ve had discussions in the past with one of Nancy’s
Senate colleagues who holds the same “position” that
Nancy now holds regarding abortion in the case of rape.
As he has said, the issue rarely presents itself in that way
for a vote, and so, in analyzing the concrete question
actually before him on the floor, he feels compelled to do
the greater good, and to come down on the side of life.
Nancy could have introduced an amendment to add a
rape-and-incest exception to SB 714, either in committee
or on the floor. (She was on the committee through which
the bill passed.) But she did not. In fact, on the day of the
committee vote, Nancy approached me at the Capitol and
said, “I want you to know that I’m still pro-life.” I inferred
that she meant she had not changed her position on
abortion, even though she had switched political parties
from Republican to Democrat. Having not offered a rape-
and-incest amendment to the bill, she voted, later in the
session, against the entire bill because, she said, it did not
contain a rape-and-incest exception.
Jerry, I reviewed our 2000 and 2004 Candidate
Surveys that Nancy answered when she ran for the Senate,
and the 2006 questionnaire she answered when she ran for
lieutenant-governor. In all three cases she answered “Yes”
to question #1 (life-of-the-mother exception only) – the
survey’s most important question. That question, from the
2006 survey (2000 and 2004 were virtually identical)
reads: “Upon reversal of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v.
Wade decision, will you vote for a law that would protect
the lives of unborn children and prohibit abortion except
to prevent the death of the mother?” Nancy answered
“Yes” all three years. Having expressed her support for a
life-of-the-mother exception only in 2000, 2004 and 2006,
Nancy’s abandoning of that position in 2007 resulted in
the defeat of the pro-life bill, SB 714. (It twice failed by
the margin of a single vote – Nancy’s vote.)
Moreover, we asked a question, #7, on our 2000
Candidate Survey that describes precisely the type of
legislation represented by SB 714. Nancy answered “Yes”
to the question, “Would you vote for a law to get
government out of the abortion business by preventing the
use of tax funds or state facilities to perform abortions
which are not necessary to avert the death of the mother,
and to prevent state employees from performing, referring
for, or counseling for abortions, other than those
necessary to avert the death of the mother?” Nancy’s
“No” vote on SB 714 ran directly contrary to the support
she had expressed for this identical type of legislation.
The votes on SB 714 were crucially important,
the most important abortion votes in many years.
Nothing we can do presently, under current Supreme
Court decisions, will prohibit abortion. So we are reduced
to saving lives at the margin: withholding government
encouragement or endorsement of abortion, recoiling from
public promotion or facilitation of abortion, refusing to
grant the state’s seal of approval for abortion... That is
what SB 714 would have done.
The U.S. Supreme Court said in the 1989 Webster
decision that states have this right. There is no public duty
to pay for the private “right” to destroy a life. We need not
grant the use of public facilities to carry out the killing.
We need not allow state-salaried employees to conduct
search-and-destroy missions against the most vulnerable
little members of our human family. We need not devote
tax dollars – paid by pro-life citizens across our state –
to the destruction of the next generation.
That’s the principle that SB 714 upheld (or, rather,
that it would have upheld). It would have made clear that
taxpayer endorsement of the taking of innocent human
lives is not the public policy of our state. It would have
made clear that, even though Roe v. Wade legalized
abortion on demand, Oklahomans chafe under that unjust
decision and continue to oppose and reject it.
Enclosed is a letter I wrote on April 23, 2007 to
Nancy and other Senators following Governor Brad
Henry’s veto of SB 714. Nancy subsequently voted two
different times to prevent the pro-life bill from becoming
law by voting to sustain the pro-abortion veto.
Dear Senator,
Planned Parenthood board member Eli Reshef,
MD, deferred to Planned Parenthood board member Dana
Stone, MD, when Governor Henry asked who wanted to
join him at the podium at Wednesday’s veto event. The
Veto Celebration – that’s how it was staged – was as sad a
spectacle as I have witnessed in my lifetime. Loud and
sustained applause by an excited and joyous pro-abortion
audience, and smiles as wide as they were incongruous...
Incongruous is the word that best describes the
event. A celebration for a continuation of unfettered
killing in state institutions . . . Apparently oblivious to
the irony, the Governor said he hoped there wouldn’t be a
‘political bloodbath.’ He didn’t offer any thoughts
regarding the actual bloodbath resulting from the babies
being killed by the state in public institutions by taxpayer-
salaried personnel.
It was appropriate that Planned Parenthood officials
were so prominently featured. Planned Parenthood
operates the biggest chain of abortion mills in the country:
over a quarter of a million babies are killed by Planned
Parenthood in their abortion “clinics” across the U.S. each
year.
Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Stone said SB 714 “didn’t
allow these very standard medical options to be given to
our patients.” Ironically, she had just said an obstetrician
has two patients, mother and baby. Sparing the baby the
unconsented-to “option” of being killed is the point of the
bill. But “very standard medical options” (note the
aversion to the word abortion) doesn’t tell the half of it for
Planned Parenthood: “preferred option” might be more
apt, given their advocacy for abortion on demand, abortion
at taxpayer expense, abortion as birth control . . . and a
death toll of their own of 250,000 babies a year.
The Governor said the bill “does not include
exemptions for cases of incest and rape.” That’s very
deceiving. Abortion would still be legal in cases of incest
and rape and abortions in cases of incest or rape could still
be paid for by Medicaid. The Governor said, “Many
victims of rape or incest would have no option but to carry
a fetus to term.” According to the Oklahoma Health Care
Authority, there was not one single rape or incest abortion
paid for by Medicaid last year, even though doing so is
legal (and would continue to be legal under Senate Bill
714 – just not in a state institution or by a state employee).
The Governor cited ‘a fetus with a fatal birth defect,’
saying we would be “forcing a woman to carry that fetus
to term.” That is not correct. Abortion would continue to
be legal in Oklahoma for any reason or for no reason. All
the bill would do in this regard is establish that, insofar as
state employees and state institutions are concerned, the
mere fact that a baby has been diagnosed with a disability
or a disease will not lead to the public-policy conclusion
that the state, therefore, shall kill the child.
The Governor said, “[I]t is highly questionable
whether this legislation could withstand legal challenges.”
The language was upheld by the highest court in the land
18 years ago, in the 1989 Webster decision of the U.S.
Supreme Court. The Governor said, “[T]his bill would
severely compromise healthcare.” That statement is true
only if one regards the killing of unborn children to be
“healthcare.” Please vote to override the Governor’s
veto of SB 714. Thank you.
Anthony J. Lauinger, State Chairman
Two attempts to override the pro-abortion veto
failed by the margin of one vote – Nancy’s vote.
Ethel Waters, the revered African-American vocalist
of blues and spirituals, had occasion near the end of her
life to recount its beginning: “My father raped my mother
when she was twelve years old, and today they’ve named
a park for me in Chester, Pennsylvania.” Recounted in her
autobiography, His Eye is on the Sparrow, her life is but
one of many of children conceived in rape who went on to
make great contributions to this world.
She might wonder how it makes sense, in logic or in
law, to execute a child for the crime of his or her father?
Abortion does not erase the trauma of a rape. Abortion
compounds the first tragedy with a second tragedy – one
for which the woman herself is responsible.
It is not valid to assume the best thing for a victim of
rape or incest is to abort her baby. For society, abortion
might seem to “solve the problem.” But for the woman
herself, it does not. Abortion often leads to psychological
anguish and emotional devastation. Britain’s Royal
College of Psychiatry issued a warning in March that
women may be at risk of mental health breakdowns if they
have abortions. They advised that women should not have
an abortion until they are counseled about the possible risk
to their mental health.
There are more than one million unborn babies being
killed by abortion in our country every year. One could
rely on the absence of a rape exception as an excuse for
opposing all manner of bills that seek to reduce abortions
and save the babies we can. Or one could support these
reasonable, modest regulations which, while not making
abortion illegal, at least give some unborn children – and
their mothers – a chance to avoid catastrophe.
That’s why Nancy’s votes against SB 714 were so
disappointing. When the opportunity to help these babies
came, she didn’t give the benefit of the doubt to life.
Respectfully,
Tony Lauinger
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