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.”