Anti-Choice Lawmaker Threatens to Set Himself on Fire to Protest Abortion
An Oklahoma lawmaker threatened to walk out of the state capitol, douse himself in gasoline and set himself on fire last week to protest women’s access to legal abortions, during a debate that was (at least in theory) about a bill to increase judicial salaries.
Rep. Kevin Calvey (R) expressed a theretofore hidden desire to self-immolate outside the Oklahoma Supreme Court while speaking against SB 548, which would give raises to the state’s supreme court justices. Claiming the jurists have not done enough to prevent women from accessing reproductive health care, Calvey gave an impassioned speech in which he claimed he would sacrifice himself to show his opposition to abortion, if only he didn’t have religious objections to suicide.
“If I were not a Christian, and didn’t have a prohibition against suicide, I’d walk across the street and douse myself in gasoline and set myself on fire,” Calvey said during the debate. “To protest the evil that is going on over there, killing, giving the death penalty, to the will of the people and the will of this body and protecting the least among us.”
More: Anti-Choice Lawmaker Threatens to Set Himself on Fire to Protest Abortion