Oklahoma governor signs the nation’s strictest abortion ban

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt on Wednesday signed into law the nation’s strictest abortion ban, making the state the primary within the nation to successfully end availability of the procedure.

State lawmakers approved the ban enforced by civil lawsuits moderately than felony prosecution, similar to a Texas legislation that was passed last yr. The law takes effect instantly upon Stitt’s signature and prohibits all abortions with few exceptions. Abortion suppliers have stated they are going to cease performing the process as soon because the bill is signed.

“I promised Oklahomans that as governor I would signal every bit of pro-life laws that came throughout my desk and I am proud to maintain that promise immediately,” the first-term Republican stated in an announcement. “From the moment life begins at conception is when we have a duty as human beings to do every thing we can to protect that baby’s life and the lifetime of the mother. That is what I believe and that's what nearly all of Oklahomans consider.”

Abortion providers throughout the country have been bracing for the likelihood that the U.S. Supreme Court’s new conservative majority may further prohibit the apply, and that has especially been the case in Oklahoma and Texas.

“The influence will likely be disastrous for Oklahomans,” said Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst for the abortion-rights supporting Guttmacher Institute. “It will even have extreme ripple effects, particularly for Texas patients who had been traveling to Oklahoma in giant numbers after the Texas six-week abortion ban went into effect in September.”

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

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

The invoice particularly authorizes doctors to remove a “useless unborn little one attributable to spontaneous abortion,” or miscarriage, or to remove an ectopic being pregnant, a potentially life-threatening emergency that occurs when a fertilized egg implants exterior the uterus, often in a fallopian tube and early in being pregnant.

The regulation also doesn't apply to using morning-after pills such as Plan B or any type 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 providing services, it is unclear what's going to happen to women who qualify below one of the exceptions. The regulation’s author, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says doctors will likely be empowered to resolve which girls qualify and that these abortions will likely be carried out in hospitals. However providers and abortion-rights activists warn that trying to prove qualification might show difficult and even dangerous in some circumstances.

Along with the Texas-style invoice already signed into legislation, the measure is one in all not less than three anti-abortion payments sent this yr to Stitt.

Oklahoma’s law is styled after a first-of-its-kind Texas regulation that the U.S. Supreme Courtroom has allowed to stay in place that permits personal residents to sue abortion providers or anybody who helps a lady acquire 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 temporarily blocked by the state’s Supreme Courtroom

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