Oklahoma governor signs Texas-style ban on most abortions

Oklahoma’s Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt has signed a Texas-style abortion ban that prohibits abortions after about six weeks of being pregnant

By SEAN MURPHY Related Press

3 May 2022, 23:03

• 4 min learn

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Oklahoma’s Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a Texas-style abortion ban on Tuesday that prohibits abortions after about six weeks of being pregnant, a part of a nationwide push in GOP-led states hopeful that the conservative U.S. Supreme Court will uphold new restrictions.

“I need Oklahoma to be probably the most pro-life state in the nation," Stitt tweeted after signing the bill.

Stitt's signing of the bill comes on the heels of a leaked draft opinion from the nation's excessive courtroom that it is contemplating weakening or overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade choice that legalized abortion almost 50 years in the past.

The bill Stitt signed takes effect immediately along with his signature, and the Oklahoma Supreme Courtroom on Tuesday denied an emergency request to temporarily halt the bill. Abortion providers say now that the new legislation is in effect, they may instantly stop providing providers for women after six weeks of pregnancy.

“Whereas the law is in impact, which it now's because the governor signed it, abortion providers after six weeks can be largely unavailable," said Rabia Muqaddam, a workers lawyer for the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights, which is representing Oklahoma abortion providers within the case. “It’s a short-term loss, but we’re hopeful that the Oklahoma Supreme Courtroom will nonetheless grant us reduction."

The new regulation prohibits abortions once cardiac activity might be detected in an embryo, which experts say is roughly six weeks right into a being pregnant, earlier than many ladies know they're pregnant. The same bill permitted in Texas final year led to a dramatic discount within the number of abortions carried out in that state, with many women going to Oklahoma and different surrounding states for the procedure.

Dr. Iman Alsaden, the medical director of Deliberate Parenthood Great Plains, said Texas' regulation that took effect in September has given their employees an idea of what a post-Roe country may appear to be.

“Since that day, my colleagues and I've frequently handled patients who are fleeing their communities to seek care," Alsaden said. “They’re taking time off of labor, taking time out of school and taking time away from their household obligations to get the care that till September 2021 they were in a position to get safely and readily of their communities."

The invoice authorizes abortions if carried out as the results of a medical emergency, but there are no exceptions if the pregnancy is the results of rape or incest.

Like the Texas law, the Oklahoma bill would permit personal residents to sue abortion suppliers or anyone who helps a lady obtain an abortion for as much as $10,000. After the U.S. Supreme Courtroom allowed that mechanism to remain in place, other Republican-led states sought to copy Texas’ ban. Idaho’s governor signed the first copycat measure in March, though it has been quickly blocked by the state’s Supreme Courtroom.

Stitt earlier this year signed a bill to make performing an abortion a felony crime in Oklahoma, however that measure is not set to take effect till this summer season, and legal experts say it's more likely to be blocked because the Roe v. Wade resolution nonetheless remains the legislation of the land.

The number of abortions carried out every year in Oklahoma, which has 4 abortion clinics, has declined steadily during the last 20 years, from greater than 6,200 in 2002 to 3,737 in 2020, the fewest in more than 20 years, in line with information from the Oklahoma State Division of Health. In 2020, before the Texas regulation was handed, about 9% of the abortions performed in Oklahoma were girls from Texas.

Earlier than the Texas ban took effect on Sept. 1, about 40 ladies from Texas had abortions performed in Oklahoma every month, the information shows. That number jumped to 222 Texas girls in September and 243 in October.