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 in the nation to successfully end availability of the procedure.

State lawmakers authorised the ban enforced by civil lawsuits reasonably than criminal prosecution, similar to a Texas law that was passed final 12 months. The regulation takes effect instantly upon Stitt’s signature and prohibits all abortions with few exceptions. Abortion providers have mentioned they are going to stop performing the process as quickly because the bill is signed.

“I promised Oklahomans that as governor I would sign every piece of pro-life laws that came throughout my desk and I am proud to keep that promise at the moment,” the first-term Republican said in an announcement. “From the moment life begins at conception is when we've got a duty as human beings to do the whole lot we can to protect that baby’s life and the lifetime of the mother. That is what I believe and that is what nearly all of Oklahomans consider.”

Abortion suppliers throughout the nation have been bracing for the possibility that the U.S. Supreme Court docket’s new conservative majority may further prohibit the practice, and that has particularly been the case in Oklahoma and Texas.

“The impression will probably be disastrous for Oklahomans,” said Elizabeth Nash, a state coverage analyst for the abortion-rights supporting Guttmacher Institute. “It's going to even have extreme ripple effects, 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 payments are 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 implies justices are considering weakening or overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade resolution that legalized abortion nearly 50 years in the past.

The one exceptions in the Oklahoma law are to save lots of the lifetime of a pregnant woman or if the being pregnant is the results of rape or incest that has been reported to legislation enforcement.

The invoice particularly authorizes doctors to take away a “lifeless unborn child 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 exterior the uterus, usually in a fallopian tube and early in being pregnant.

The law also doesn't apply to the usage of morning-after tablets comparable to 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 offering services, it is unclear what will happen to women who qualify under one of many exceptions. The regulation’s writer, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says medical doctors shall be empowered to determine which women qualify and that those abortions will probably be carried out in hospitals. But providers and abortion-rights activists warn that trying to show qualification might show tough and even dangerous in some circumstances.

Along with the Texas-style bill already signed into legislation, the measure is one in every of at least three anti-abortion bills despatched 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 enables personal residents to sue abortion providers or anybody who helps a woman 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 briefly blocked by the state’s Supreme Courtroom

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