Oklahoma Republicans pass bill requiring state officials to call abortion ‘murder’ in public statements

Oklahoma lawmakers have passed legislation that would require officials to consider abortion to be murder.

The Tulsa Worldreported a law was passed Monday afternoon that would force any state official to defy the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized privacy for the procedure. It was also done without any discussion or debate on the House floor.

The bill's author, Republican state Rep. Chuck Strohm, spoke after the bill's passage claiming the high court violated "every act of decency and law" when it decided Roe v. Wade. He declared the founding documents of the United States were abused by “forcing the murder of unborn children on our society.”

He went on to tell his fellow officials that they took an oath to uphold the Constitution and “to exercise their authority as appropriate in their respective jurisdictions to stop the murder of innocent unborn children by abortion.”

While the Republican state official would force the hand of his fellow lawmakers, the legislation actually has no official bearing on the law itself. So, women could not be prosecuted for the procedure using this new law, it merely forces the rhetoric and commentary by elected officials, which might violate the First Amendment.

Strohm insisted the 10th and 14th amendments to the Constitution mean “no one — not a doctor, not a father or a mother — has rights that allow them to murder an unborn child" and the Supreme Court didn't have the authority to decide the case.

Oklahoma is suffering from a nearly $900 million budget shortfall for which the legislature has yet to pass a budget to fix.