Pregnant Women Are Just "Hosts" For Fetuses, According to This Oklahoma State Senator

Update: POPSUGAR spoke to Shannon Speidel, chairwoman of the Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice, about these two controversial anti-abortion bills. Speidel said the bill requiring women to get written permission from a partner before seeking an abortion was "alarming and unjust to the lives and trust of of women in Oklahoma." Speidel got to the root of what makes the bill so appalling: "According to the bill's author Rep. Humphrey, it is the fault of the woman if she gets pregnant because she didn't take the necessary steps to prevent the pregnancy. And because she 'invited that in' she is no longer able to make decisions about her reproductive life."

Speidel said bills that limit abortion are "always a calculated plan" and added that the obsession with anti-abortion bills is especially confounding giving the range of pressing political issues the state faces. "This year, our state is in a multimillion-dollar deficit," she said. "We see our public school system crumbling, our economic development lagging, inadequate health care, and yet anti-abortion legislation remains a priority for many lawmakers."

Original story: Oklahoma has the most abortion restrictions in the country behind Louisiana, and now, the state legislature is trying to make it even more difficult to obtain the procedure. Two antiabortion bills, House Bill 1549 and House Bill 1441, will be voted on on Tuesday despite opposition. And that's not even the worst part.

Both bills are stringently antiabortion. HB 1549 would prevent aborting fetuses that might have genetic abnormalities, but House Bill 1441's mandates rise to a new level of invasive, as they would require a woman seeking an abortion to also receive written consent from her sexual partner before the procedure. The Supreme Court previously deemed a Pennsylvania law that stipulated married women had to receive permission from their husbands before obtaining abortions unconstitutional.

While HB 1441 is disturbing, the author of the bill's explanation for introducing it is perhaps even more disturbing. Justin Humphrey, a freshman in the House Public Health Committee, said he wrote the bill to ensure that fathers support their children from inception. More explicitly, however, Humphrey told The Intercept that he felt "one of the breakdowns in our society is that we have excluded the man out of all of these types of decisions."

Here comes the kicker. Humphrey then went on to say that he believes pregnant women are merely "hosts" to fetuses. "I understand that they feel like that is their body," Humphrey opined. "I feel like it is a separate. . . what I call them is, is you're a 'host.' And you know when you enter into a relationship you're going to be that host and so, you know, if you pre-know that then take all precautions and don't get pregnant."

Humphrey continued by suggesting pregnant women seeking abortions are somehow irresponsible, which is a sad and familiar antiabortion tag line as of late. "I'm like, hey, your body is your body and be responsible with it," Humphrey posited. "But after you're irresponsible then don't claim, well, I can just go and do this with another body, when you're the host and you invited that in."

Of course, two people are responsible for creating a child; at least Humphrey comprehends basic biology. However, describing pregnant women as "hosts" makes it sound like women are robotic baby-producing machines in a science lab. . . or that fetuses are somehow parasites.