Oklahoma governor signs the nation’s strictest abortion ban

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

State lawmakers accepted the ban enforced by civil lawsuits relatively than prison prosecution, much like a Texas regulation that was passed final yr. The legislation takes impact instantly upon Stitt’s signature and prohibits all abortions with few exceptions. Abortion suppliers have mentioned they may cease performing the procedure as soon because the bill is signed.

“I promised Oklahomans that as governor I might sign every bit of pro-life laws that came throughout my desk and I am proud to maintain that promise in the present day,” the first-term Republican said in an announcement. “From the moment life begins at conception is when we now have a responsibility as human beings to do all the pieces we are able to to protect that child’s life and the life of the mom. That's what I believe and that's what the vast majority of Oklahomans believe.”

Abortion suppliers throughout the country have been bracing for the possibility that the U.S. Supreme Courtroom’s new conservative majority would possibly further prohibit the apply, and that has especially been the case in Oklahoma and Texas.

“The impression can be disastrous for Oklahomans,” said Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst for the abortion-rights supporting Guttmacher Institute. “It'll even have extreme ripple results, especially for Texas sufferers who had been traveling to Oklahoma in large numbers after the Texas six-week abortion ban went into effect in September.”

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

The only exceptions within the Oklahoma regulation are to save lots of the lifetime of a pregnant girl or if the pregnancy is the results of rape or incest that has been reported to regulation enforcement.

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

The legislation additionally does not apply to the use of morning-after tablets akin to Plan B or any kind 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 anticipated to stop offering providers, it's unclear what's going to occur to women who qualify underneath one of many exceptions. The legislation’s writer, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says docs can be empowered to decide which ladies qualify and that those abortions will be performed in hospitals. However suppliers and abortion-rights activists warn that making an attempt to show qualification might prove troublesome and even dangerous in some circumstances.

In addition to the Texas-style bill already signed into legislation, the measure is considered one of not less than three anti-abortion bills despatched this 12 months to Stitt.

Oklahoma’s law is styled after a first-of-its-kind Texas regulation that the U.S. Supreme Courtroom has allowed to remain in place that allows non-public citizens to sue abortion suppliers or anyone who helps a lady obtain 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 carry out an abortion, punishable by as much as 10 years in jail. That bill comprises no exceptions for rape or incest.