Jessica Garvin never planned to be a politician. Now she is a highly visible Senator and signer of IWF’s Women’s Bill of Rights.
Independent Women’s Forum is pleased to announce that Jessica Garvin, an Oklahoma State Senator, who has had a long career in the healthcare and assisted living fields, is the latest entry in our popular series of Champion Women profiles.
Garvin wasn’t one of those people who aspired to political office. But a funny thing happened in 2018. Everywhere Jessica Garvin turned, somebody else seemed to sidle up and whisper, “You really need to run for the Oklahoma State Senate.” Garvin was perplexed. She had never held political office and had no plans to do so.
“It was pretty crazy,” Garvin tells IWF. “One day a friend called out of the blue and said, ‘Hey, if you ever get a chance to run for office, you should do it.’ I admitted to my then-boss that people were telling me this and that I thought the whole thing was stupid. He looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘Well, I don’t think it’s stupid at all. I think you should do it.’” More than just finding it an interesting idea, Garvin’s boss sat down and made a list of community leaders for her to sound out.
When she couldn’t escape the recruiters, Garvin eventually decided that she was being prompted to run for the Senate Seat for Oklahoma’s 43rd district. She won handily. Garvin has been involved in family and health issues, where her healthcare background comes in handy. For example, she is the author of a bill to codify rights to birth control.
“Planned Parenthood has gone across the country scaring people by telling them politicians are going to take away birth control,” she explains, “and it will be impossible to get an IUD, or at least that’s what we’ve seen here in Oklahoma. I have a bill that says nobody can take your right to preventative birth control. It may seem ridiculous that we have to do this, but it’s something we need to make clear because of that narrative from Planned Parenthood and other pro-choice groups.”
She has also signed IWF’s Women’s Bill of Rights. “It was important to me not just because I am the mother of girls,” she says, “but because we are getting to a point where we are sacrificing the safety and well-being of women. I’m personally maybe a little bit libertarian, in that I just don’t care what people do as long as it doesn’t impact me. Whatever makes you happy, just do whatever that is. But at the same time, do not jeopardize the safety and well-being of others at the expense of you doing whatever makes you happy.”
We know you will enjoy meeting Senator Garvin, a woman empowered by her small town roots, family, and her faith.
