Oklahoma governor indicators 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 in the nation to successfully finish availability of the procedure.

State lawmakers authorised the ban enforced by civil lawsuits quite than felony prosecution, just like a Texas regulation that was passed final year. The legislation takes impact immediately upon Stitt’s signature and prohibits all abortions with few exceptions. Abortion providers have said they'll stop performing the procedure as quickly because the invoice is signed.

“I promised Oklahomans that as governor I might signal every bit of pro-life laws that got here throughout my desk and I am proud to keep that promise today,” the first-term Republican said in a press release. “From the moment life begins at conception is when we've got a duty as human beings to do the whole lot we are able to to guard that baby’s life and the lifetime of the mom. That is what I believe and that is what the vast majority of Oklahomans imagine.”

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

“The influence might be disastrous for Oklahomans,” mentioned Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst for the abortion-rights supporting Guttmacher Institute. “It is going to even have severe ripple effects, especially 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 reduce abortion rights. It comes on the heels of a leaked draft opinion from the nation’s excessive court that means justices are contemplating weakening or overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade resolution that legalized abortion practically 50 years in the past.

The one exceptions in the Oklahoma law are to save the lifetime of a pregnant lady or if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest that has been reported to law enforcement.

The invoice specifically authorizes doctors to take away a “useless unborn child attributable to spontaneous abortion,” or miscarriage, or to remove an ectopic pregnancy, a doubtlessly life-threatening emergency that happens when a fertilized egg implants outdoors the uterus, typically in a fallopian tube and early in being pregnant.

The legislation additionally doesn't apply to the usage of morning-after drugs comparable to Plan B or any type 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 anticipated to cease offering companies, it's unclear what will occur to girls who qualify under one of many exceptions. The law’s writer, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says doctors will be empowered to resolve which women qualify and that those abortions will probably be carried out in hospitals. But suppliers and abortion-rights activists warn that attempting to show qualification may prove difficult and even dangerous in some circumstances.

In addition to the Texas-style invoice already signed into law, the measure is one in every of no less than three anti-abortion bills despatched this yr to Stitt.

Oklahoma’s regulation is styled after a first-of-its-kind Texas legislation that the U.S. Supreme Courtroom has allowed to remain in place that allows private residents to sue abortion suppliers or anyone who helps a woman get hold of an abortion. Different Republican-led states sought to repeat Texas’ ban. Idaho’s governor signed the first copycat measure in March, although it has been quickly blocked by the state’s Supreme Court

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