Oklahoma governor indicators 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 within the nation to effectively finish availability of the procedure.

State lawmakers accepted the ban enforced by civil lawsuits relatively than criminal prosecution, much like a Texas law that was handed 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 because the bill is signed.

“I promised Oklahomans that as governor I'd sign every piece of pro-life legislation that got here across my desk and I'm proud to keep that promise at present,” the first-term Republican said in an announcement. “From the second life begins at conception is when now we have a accountability as human beings to do every little thing we will to guard that child’s life and the lifetime of the mother. That is what I believe and that is what the vast majority of Oklahomans consider.”

Abortion suppliers across the country have been bracing for the chance that the U.S. Supreme Courtroom’s new conservative majority would possibly additional restrict the apply, and that has especially been the case in Oklahoma and Texas.

“The affect can be disastrous for Oklahomans,” said Elizabeth Nash, a state coverage 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 large numbers after the Texas six-week abortion ban went into impact 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 excessive court that implies justices are considering weakening or overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade resolution that legalized abortion almost 50 years ago.

The one exceptions within the Oklahoma law are to save lots of 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 bill specifically authorizes medical doctors to take away a “useless unborn youngster brought on by spontaneous abortion,” or miscarriage, or to take away an ectopic being pregnant, a doubtlessly life-threatening emergency that happens when a fertilized egg implants outdoors the uterus, often in a fallopian tube and early in being pregnant.

The legislation additionally doesn't apply to the use of morning-after pills reminiscent of Plan B or any type 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 cease providing providers, it's unclear what is going to happen to girls who qualify under one of many exceptions. The law’s author, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says docs shall be empowered to decide which ladies qualify and that these abortions will likely be carried out in hospitals. However providers and abortion-rights activists warn that attempting to prove qualification may prove troublesome and even harmful in some circumstances.

In addition to the Texas-style invoice already signed into law, the measure is one in every of not less than three anti-abortion payments sent this yr to Stitt.

Oklahoma’s legislation is styled after a first-of-its-kind Texas law that the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed to remain in place that allows private citizens to sue abortion providers or anyone 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, although it has been temporarily blocked by the state’s Supreme Court docket

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