Oklahoma governor signs 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 within the nation to successfully end availability of the process.

State lawmakers authorised the ban enforced by civil lawsuits relatively than felony prosecution, much like a Texas regulation that was passed final yr. The regulation takes effect instantly upon Stitt’s signature and prohibits all abortions with few exceptions. Abortion providers have mentioned they will stop performing the process as soon because the bill is signed.

“I promised Oklahomans that as governor I would signal every piece of pro-life legislation that came throughout my desk and I am proud to keep that promise immediately,” the first-term Republican stated in an announcement. “From the second life begins at conception is when we've got a responsibility as human beings to do every thing we will to protect that child’s life and the life of the mom. That is what I imagine and that's what the vast majority of Oklahomans believe.”

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

“The influence will likely 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 results, particularly 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 bills are a 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 docket that implies justices are contemplating weakening or overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade determination that legalized abortion nearly 50 years ago.

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

The bill specifically authorizes medical doctors to take away a “dead unborn child brought on by spontaneous abortion,” or miscarriage, or to remove an ectopic being pregnant, a doubtlessly life-threatening emergency that happens when a fertilized egg implants exterior the uterus, often in a fallopian tube and early in pregnancy.

The law also does not apply to using morning-after tablets resembling Plan B or any kind 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 is unclear what is going to happen to ladies who qualify below one of many exceptions. The law’s creator, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says doctors will likely be empowered to resolve which women qualify and that those abortions can be carried out in hospitals. However suppliers and abortion-rights activists warn that making an attempt to prove qualification might show troublesome and even dangerous in some circumstances.

Along with the Texas-style invoice already signed into legislation, the measure is certainly one of no less than three anti-abortion bills despatched this yr to Stitt.

Oklahoma’s legislation is styled after a first-of-its-kind Texas legislation that the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed to remain in place that enables personal citizens to sue abortion suppliers or anybody who helps a girl get hold of an abortion. Other 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 and would make it a felony to perform an abortion, punishable by up to 10 years in jail. That bill accommodates no exceptions for rape or incest.