Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt certainly has an interesting connection to his Indigenous constituents. The Republican is a member of the Cherokee Nation, though his enrollment is mired in controversy and the tribe once even tried to disenroll him over allegations of fraud. Stitt has nonetheless received campaign donations from multiple tribes in Oklahoma, including the Cherokee Nation itself. Even outside of questions of ancestry, Stitt’s lived experience is worlds away from those more connected to the Indigenous community and it cannot be more explicitly seen than with his views on abortion.
More than 13% of Oklahomans are at least partially Indigenous and, even state-wide, a majority of all residents, regardless of ethnicity, believe that abortion should be legal in most cases. Indigenous people disproportionately seek out abortions, so it’s not that far-fetched to believe that reservations would be willing to provide reproductive care for their community—something that Stitt is desperately afraid of, he told Fox News Sunday. Without a shred of evidence, Stitt claimed that “Oklahomans will not think very well of that if tribes try to set up abortion clinics.”
“We think that there's a possibility that some tribes may try to set up abortion on demand. They think that you can be 1/1,000th tribal member and not have to follow the state law. And so, that's something that we're watching,” Stitt said, which is rich coming from someone who has an ancestor who may have bribed his family and a legal team to enroll in the Cherokee Nation for their own benefit.
Stitt was so proud of his Fox News Sunday appearance jam packed with erroneous information that he even posted a clip detailing how he thinks Oklahomans feel about abortion. “We have a free market in Oklahoma,” Stitt said in the clip. “We believe that God has a special plan for every single life and every single child and we want everybody to have the same opportunities in Oklahoma and aborting a child is not the right answer.” A majority of Oklahomans believe in God, yet that isn’t a clear indicator that they’re anti-abortion, especially when there’s data to the contrary.
More importantly, however, is that Stitt’s concerns over renegade abortion clinics on reservations may actually be unfounded. A report from KOSU found that many tribes and providers would be reluctant to suddenly open up shop and establish reproductive health care facilities on reservations due to a combination of factors, including medical providers’ licenses being put at risk and the optics of a tribe suddenly becoming known for providing such medical procedures. Even if tribes were to establish reproductive health care clinics, Stitt’s time would be better spent looking into why Indigenous communities—and all Oklahomans—continue to be underserved when it comes to reproductive rights.
Looking in the mirror might help: Thanks to Stitt’s endorsement of restrictive abortion policies and his aggressively pro-life stance, Oklahomans are finding places out of state to receive necessary medical care like abortions. Kansas is just one example of a state seeing an uptick of Oklahomans traveling there for reproductive health care needs. Oklahoma even once served as a state for Texans to seek abortions, so it’s not like the problem of receiving care is going away; it’s just been moved further and further from the most affected communities.
