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 in the nation to effectively finish availability of the process.

State lawmakers permitted the ban enforced by civil lawsuits somewhat than prison prosecution, similar to a Texas regulation that was handed last 12 months. The regulation takes effect immediately upon Stitt’s signature and prohibits all abortions with few exceptions. Abortion providers have said they are going to stop performing the procedure as soon because the invoice is signed.

“I promised Oklahomans that as governor I might sign each piece of pro-life laws that came across my desk and I am proud to keep that promise right this moment,” the first-term Republican said in an announcement. “From the moment life begins at conception is when we've got a responsibility as human beings to do every little thing we can to protect that baby’s life and the lifetime of the mother. That is what I consider and that is what the majority of Oklahomans consider.”

Abortion providers across the nation have been bracing for the chance that the U.S. Supreme Court docket’s new conservative majority would possibly additional limit the follow, and that has especially been the case in Oklahoma and Texas.

“The influence will probably be disastrous for Oklahomans,” stated Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst for the abortion-rights supporting Guttmacher Institute. “It'll also have severe ripple results, particularly for Texas patients who had been touring to Oklahoma in giant numbers after the Texas six-week abortion ban went into impact in September.”

The bills 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 courtroom that suggests justices are contemplating weakening or overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade choice that legalized abortion almost 50 years in the past.

The only exceptions in the Oklahoma legislation are to save the lifetime of a pregnant girl or if the being pregnant is the result of rape or incest that has been reported to regulation enforcement.

The bill particularly authorizes docs to take away a “useless unborn baby 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, usually in a fallopian tube and early in pregnancy.

The law additionally does not apply to the usage of morning-after tablets such as Plan B or any sort of contraception.

Two of Oklahoma’s 4 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 stop providing providers, it's unclear what's going to occur to ladies who qualify below one of many exceptions. The legislation’s creator, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says medical doctors can be empowered to resolve which women qualify and that those abortions shall be performed in hospitals. But suppliers and abortion-rights activists warn that making an attempt to show qualification may show troublesome and even dangerous in some circumstances.

In addition to the Texas-style bill already signed into regulation, the measure is certainly one of at the least three anti-abortion bills despatched this yr to Stitt.

Oklahoma’s legislation is styled after a first-of-its-kind Texas law that the U.S. Supreme Court docket has allowed to stay in place that allows non-public citizens to sue abortion providers or anybody who helps a girl get hold of an abortion. Different Republican-led states sought to repeat Texas’ ban. Idaho’s governor signed the primary copycat measure in March, though it has been temporarily blocked by the state’s Supreme Court

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