Although the Oklahoma City media has done its level best to ignore the story about GOP Senate candidate Tom Coburn's involuntary sterilization of a 20-year-old woman in 1990, the national media has not, and neither has the Tulsa media. The Tulsa World apparently has an article today, but their Web site is inscrutable and subscription-only, so that limits Coburn's exposure.

The Associated Press, though, is not, and one Tulsa TV station has a report on the woman in question, who is speaking out and denying Coburn's defense:

"He sterilized me without my consent," Plummer said in an interview Wednesday night with The Associated Press.

Plummer, who was 20 at the time of the surgery and is now 34, said she was surprised when she learned of what had been done.

"He told me when I went in for my checkup," she said. "He took me in a room by myself and said, `by the way, I tied your tubes but don't tell anybody because I'll get in trouble."'

"I was just kind of in shock. It changed my life forever."

... Before her case was initially dismissed for a violation of the statute of limitations, Plummer was questioned by a defense attorney.

She said Wednesday that she was "basically crucified" in this questioning.

"They pretty much ran me through every bit of dirt there was in Oklahoma," she said. "They wanted to know how many sexual partners I had. You name the question, they asked it. And they got mad when I didn't answer them."

She said that after the appeals court reinstated the case, she had difficulty finding a new attorney and later was notified by mail that the case had been dismissed because she wasn't present on her court date. No settlement was ever offered to her, she said.

Plummer said she wants to make sure what happened to her doesn't happen to other women.

"I want it stopped. He needs to realize he's not God.

"He changed my life forever. He violated me. That's the same as being raped. He took part of my womanhood."

This is the same pro-life doctor, mind you, who advocates the death penalty for those who perform abortions, and promises to "make ending the tragedy of abortion and caring for the unborn a personal priority as he always has." Except for this woman, who Coburn judged on his own was not fit to get pregnant again, and who was intimidated out of her lawsuit by Coburn's lawyers.

This is not the Kobe Bryant trial - does anyone have any idea how her past sex partners would influence whether Coburn had her consent to sterilize her or not? Coburn was the one who removed her fallopian tube, no matter how much he tries to blame it on "liberal Web sites" or Democrats.