Oklahomans For Life: 2016 Candidates

Candidate Surveys for June 28, 2016 Primary Election

  In anticipation of the Primary Election on Tuesday, June 28, 2016, Oklahomans For Life asked the twelve questions below of candidates for the Oklahoma State Senate and the Oklahoma State House of Representatives. The counties or partial counties (marked by an asterisk) in the district are indicated after the district number. The abbreviation after a candidate’s name represents party affiliation (Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, or Independent). 

Oklahomans For Life 2016 Candidate Survey

On each question, a “yes” answer indicates agreement with the position of Oklahomans For Life.

Question 1:  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?

Yes ____ No ____

Question 2: If efforts to enact such a law failed, will you vote for a law that would prohibit abortion except when necessary to prevent the death of the mother, or when the pregnancy is the result of forcible rape (reported to law enforcement authorities within seven days), or when the pregnancy resulted from an act of incest committed against a minor (with the perpetrator reported to law enforcement authorities)?

Yes ____ No ____

Question 3: Recently, there have been attempts in several states to pass a state Equal Rights Amendment which would amend the state Constitution to invalidate any law or government policy that discriminates “on account of sex.” In some of the states that have already added this or similar  provisions to their state constitutions, courts have used them to invalidate limits on abortion. The New Mexico Supreme Court, e.g., in 1998 unanimously ruled that the New Mexico ERA required state funding of abortion. We oppose the ERA unless an “abortion neutralization” amendment is added to  ensure that the ERA will not change abortion policy in any way. The amendment would read: “Nothing  in this article [the ERA] shall be construed to grant, secure, or deny any right relating to abortion or the funding thereof.” Would you vote against any proposed ERA if it does not contain this “abortion  neutralization” amendment?

Yes ____ No ____

Question 4: School-based health centers have been established on some Oklahoma school campuses  to provide health care to students. Will you oppose funding of school-based health centers unless they are explicitly prevented from providing abortions, abortion counseling, or making abortion referrals?

Yes ____ No ____

Question 5: There is currently an aggressive drive underway to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide across the United States. Causing the starvation or dehydration deaths of persons with disabilities and of incompetent patients who are deemed to be a burden on others or to have a diminished “quality of life” is the euthanasia movement’s interim goal while they seek eventual  public acceptance of killing by lethal injection or by lethal overdose of controlled  substances/dangerous drugs. Oklahoma’s Hydration and Nutrition for Incompetent Patients Act  protects incompetent persons who have not directed that they be deprived of food and water so they will not be victims of death by starvation or dehydration. Will you oppose any attempt to repeal or weaken this protective law?

Yes ____ No ____

Question 6:  Oklahoma’s Nondiscrimination in Treatment Act requires that a health care provider shall  not deny to a patient a life-preserving health care service the provider provides to other patients, and the provision of which is directed by the patient or a person authorized to make health care decisions for the patient: 1) On the basis of a view that treats extending the life of an elderly, disabled, or terminally ill individual as of lower value than extending the life of an individual who is younger, nondisabled, or not terminally ill; or 2) On the basis of disagreement with how the patient or person authorized to make health care decisions for the patient values the tradeoff between extending the length of the patient’s life and the risk of disability.  Will you oppose any attempt to repeal or weaken  this protective law?

Yes ____ No ____

Question 7: Oklahoma law protects against the involuntary denial of life-saving medical treatment by requiring that if a health-care provider’s refusal to comply with a decision made by or on behalf of a  patient to receive life-saving medical treatment would, in reasonable medical judgment, be likely to result in the patient’s death, then the health-care provider must provide the life-saving treatment  pending transfer of the patient to a willing provider. Will you oppose any attempt to repeal or weaken this protective law?

Yes ____ No ____

Question 8:  Oklahoma’s advance directive (living will) law recognizes the particular importance of  food and water. In order to ensure truly informed consent, our law requires a separately-initialed paragraph in an advance directive in order for artificial administration of food and water to be rejected. Some proposals have been made that would, instead, combine food and water with “medical treatment” such as respirators or surgery, so that choosing to forego life-sustaining medical treatment would be assumed to mean the individual wanted to die by starvation and dehydration. In order to avoid confusion and protect individuals who expect to die from their underlying illness or injury, not from starvation or dehydration, will you vote against any bill that would repeal or weaken the existing requirement for a separately-initialed provision in an advance directive to indicate the rejection of food and water?

Yes ____ No ____

Question 9: Will you oppose the legalization of lethal prescriptions or lethal injections to intentionally kill an innocent person or to “assist” someone in committing suicide (“active  euthanasia”)? 

Yes ____ No ____

Question 10:  Oklahoma’s Supreme Court has arbitrarily struck down as “unconstitutional” several pro-life laws, including laws which in other states have survived federal court challenges. The Oklahoma Supreme Court has become so hostile to the right to life that, when the abortion industry challenges Oklahoma’s pro-life laws, they no longer file suit in federal court, where they would most likely lose, but rather in state court, to give the Oklahoma Supreme Court the opportunity to strike down the laws.  A primary reason that the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s rulings are so pro-abortion is  that the Judicial Nominating Commission, which is responsible for nominating Supreme Court justices, is dominated by the Oklahoma Bar Association, the lawyers’ special interest group, which is a member of the pro-abortion American Bar Association. Will you support efforts to remove any binding role on judicial selection for the Judicial Nominating Commission or any other unelected entity, and instead, by state Constitutional referendum, allow the people directly to elect state Supreme Court justices, as 21 other states already do?

Yes ____ No ____

Question 11: Given the background on the courts described in the previous question, will you support efforts to remove any binding role on judicial selection by the Judicial Nominating Commission or any other unelected entity, and instead, by state Constitutional referendum, change the procedure by which state Supreme Court justices are chosen by making that procedure similar to the way U. S. Supreme Court justices are chosen? (This would mean having the Governor nominate a

state Supreme Court justice, and having the state Senate and/or state House of Representatives vote on whether to confirm the Governor’s nominee.)

Yes ____ No ____

Question 12: Given the background on the courts described in the previous two questions, and given the fact that the state Constitution authorizes the Legislature to limit, by statute, the tenure of current state Supreme Court justices by enacting a mandatory retirement age, and given the fact that 32 other states impose a mandatory retirement age on their states’ Supreme Court justices, will you support a law to establish a mandatory retirement age for Oklahoma Supreme Court justices?

Yes ____ No ____

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