Oklahoma governor indicators the nation’s strictest abortion ban

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt on Wednesday signed into regulation the nation’s strictest abortion ban, making the state the first within the nation to effectively finish availability of the procedure.

State lawmakers permitted the ban enforced by civil lawsuits fairly than legal prosecution, just like a Texas regulation that was handed final 12 months. The law takes effect immediately upon Stitt’s signature and prohibits all abortions with few exceptions. Abortion suppliers have stated they'll cease performing the procedure as quickly as the invoice is signed.

“I promised Oklahomans that as governor I would sign every piece of pro-life legislation that got here throughout my desk and I'm proud to keep that promise right this moment,” the first-term Republican said in a press release. “From the second life begins at conception is when now we have a responsibility as human beings to do all the things we are able to to guard that child’s life and the lifetime of the mom. That's what I believe and that's what the vast majority of Oklahomans believe.”

Abortion providers across the country have been bracing for the chance that the U.S. Supreme Court’s new conservative majority would possibly further restrict the apply, and that has particularly been the case in Oklahoma and Texas.

“The influence can be disastrous for Oklahomans,” said Elizabeth Nash, a state coverage analyst for the abortion-rights supporting Guttmacher Institute. “It would even have extreme ripple effects, especially for Texas patients who had been traveling to Oklahoma in large numbers after the Texas six-week abortion ban went into impact in September.”

The bills are a part of an aggressive push in Republican-led states to reduce abortion rights. It comes on the heels of a leaked draft opinion from the nation’s excessive court docket that implies justices are considering weakening or overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade choice that legalized abortion practically 50 years ago.

The only exceptions within the Oklahoma legislation are to avoid wasting the lifetime of a pregnant girl or if the pregnancy is the results of rape or incest that has been reported to regulation enforcement.

The invoice particularly authorizes medical doctors to remove a “dead unborn child caused by spontaneous abortion,” or miscarriage, or to remove an ectopic being pregnant, a probably life-threatening emergency that happens when a fertilized egg implants outside the uterus, often in a fallopian tube and early in being pregnant.

The law also does not apply to the usage of morning-after drugs corresponding to Plan B or any sort of contraception.

Two of Oklahoma’s four abortion clinics already stopped providing abortions after the governor signed a six-week ban earlier this month.

With the state’s two remaining abortion clinics expected to cease offering services, it's unclear what is going to happen to girls who qualify beneath one of many exceptions. The regulation’s writer, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says medical doctors will probably be empowered to determine which girls qualify and that those abortions will likely be performed in hospitals. However providers and abortion-rights activists warn that attempting to show qualification might prove difficult and even dangerous in some circumstances.

In addition to the Texas-style bill already signed into legislation, the measure is one in every of not less than three anti-abortion payments despatched this yr to Stitt.

Oklahoma’s legislation is styled after a first-of-its-kind Texas law that the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed to remain in place that enables non-public citizens to sue abortion suppliers or anybody who helps a woman obtain an abortion. Different Republican-led states sought to repeat Texas’ ban. Idaho’s governor signed the primary copycat measure in March, although it has been quickly blocked by the state’s Supreme Court docket

The third Oklahoma invoice is to take impact this summer time and would make it a felony to carry out an abortion, punishable by up to 10 years in jail. That bill incorporates no exceptions for rape or incest.