Oklahoma governor signs the nation’s strictest abortion ban

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

State lawmakers accredited the ban enforced by civil lawsuits rather than felony prosecution, similar to a Texas legislation that was passed last year. The legislation takes effect immediately upon Stitt’s signature and prohibits all abortions with few exceptions. Abortion providers have mentioned they'll stop performing the procedure as soon as the bill is signed.

“I promised Oklahomans that as governor I'd signal each piece of pro-life legislation that got here across my desk and I'm proud to keep that promise right this moment,” the first-term Republican said in a statement. “From the second life begins at conception is when we've a accountability as human beings to do everything we can to protect that child’s life and the lifetime of the mom. That's what I believe and that is what the majority of Oklahomans imagine.”

Abortion suppliers throughout the nation have been bracing for the likelihood that the U.S. Supreme Courtroom’s new conservative majority would possibly additional prohibit the follow, and that has especially been the case in Oklahoma and Texas.

“The impact will likely be disastrous for Oklahomans,” stated Elizabeth Nash, a state coverage analyst for the abortion-rights supporting Guttmacher Institute. “It is going to even have severe ripple effects, especially for Texas sufferers who had been traveling to Oklahoma in giant numbers after the Texas six-week abortion ban went into impact in September.”

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

The one exceptions within the Oklahoma regulation are to avoid wasting the life of a pregnant woman or if the being pregnant is the result of rape or incest that has been reported to regulation enforcement.

The bill specifically authorizes medical doctors to remove a “dead unborn youngster brought on by spontaneous abortion,” or miscarriage, or to take away an ectopic being pregnant, a probably life-threatening emergency that occurs when a fertilized egg implants outdoors the uterus, often in a fallopian tube and early in being pregnant.

The law also does not apply to using morning-after drugs comparable to Plan B or any kind of contraception.

Two of Oklahoma’s 4 abortion clinics already stopped offering abortions after the governor signed a six-week ban earlier this month.

With the state’s two remaining abortion clinics expected to cease offering companies, it is unclear what will occur to girls who qualify underneath one of many exceptions. The law’s creator, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says medical doctors might be empowered to decide which women qualify and that those abortions might be performed in hospitals. But suppliers and abortion-rights activists warn that trying to prove qualification may prove troublesome and even dangerous in some circumstances.

Along with the Texas-style bill already signed into legislation, the measure is one in every of at the very least three anti-abortion bills despatched this 12 months to Stitt.

Oklahoma’s law is styled after a first-of-its-kind Texas law that the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed to remain in place that enables personal residents to sue abortion providers or anybody who helps a girl 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 briefly blocked by the state’s Supreme Court

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