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 first within the nation to effectively end availability of the process.

State lawmakers permitted the ban enforced by civil lawsuits fairly than criminal prosecution, just like a Texas legislation that was passed final 12 months. The legislation takes impact immediately upon Stitt’s signature and prohibits all abortions with few exceptions. Abortion providers have stated they'll stop performing the process as soon as the bill is signed.

“I promised Oklahomans that as governor I'd signal each piece of pro-life laws that got here throughout my desk and I am proud to keep that promise at this time,” the first-term Republican said in a statement. “From the second life begins at conception is when we've a duty as human beings to do every thing we will to protect that child’s life and the life of the mother. That's what I consider and that is what nearly all of Oklahomans imagine.”

Abortion providers throughout the country have been bracing for the possibility that the U.S. Supreme Court docket’s new conservative majority would possibly additional prohibit the observe, and that has particularly been the case in Oklahoma and Texas.

“The impact shall be disastrous for Oklahomans,” mentioned Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst for the abortion-rights supporting Guttmacher Institute. “It will even have extreme ripple effects, particularly for Texas sufferers who had been touring to Oklahoma in large numbers after the Texas six-week abortion ban went into effect in September.”

The payments are a 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 high 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 in the Oklahoma regulation are to avoid wasting the lifetime of a pregnant woman or if the being pregnant is the result of rape or incest that has been reported to legislation enforcement.

The invoice particularly authorizes medical doctors to take away a “dead unborn little one attributable to spontaneous abortion,” or miscarriage, or to remove an ectopic being pregnant, a probably life-threatening emergency that occurs when a fertilized egg implants outdoors the uterus, typically in a fallopian tube and early in being pregnant.

The legislation also doesn't apply to using morning-after drugs comparable to Plan B or any sort 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 stop offering services, it's unclear what will occur to ladies who qualify under one of many exceptions. The law’s writer, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says medical doctors shall be empowered to resolve which women qualify and that those abortions might be carried out in hospitals. However suppliers and abortion-rights activists warn that attempting to prove qualification may show difficult and even harmful in some circumstances.

Along with the Texas-style invoice already signed into law, the measure is one among at the least three anti-abortion payments despatched this yr to Stitt.

Oklahoma’s legislation is styled after a first-of-its-kind Texas regulation that the U.S. Supreme Courtroom has allowed to remain in place that permits personal residents to sue abortion providers or anyone who helps a woman receive 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 docket

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 bill incorporates no exceptions for rape or incest.