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 primary within the nation to effectively end availability of the procedure.

State lawmakers accepted the ban enforced by civil lawsuits somewhat than prison prosecution, just like a Texas regulation that was handed last 12 months. The regulation takes impact instantly upon Stitt’s signature and prohibits all abortions with few exceptions. Abortion providers have said they may cease performing the procedure as quickly as the bill is signed.

“I promised Oklahomans that as governor I might sign every piece of pro-life laws that came across my desk and I'm proud to maintain that promise at the moment,” the first-term Republican stated in an announcement. “From the second life begins at conception is when we have a accountability as human beings to do all the things we can to protect that child’s life and the lifetime of the mom. That is what I believe and that is what the majority of Oklahomans imagine.”

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

“The affect will probably be disastrous for Oklahomans,” mentioned Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst for the abortion-rights supporting Guttmacher Institute. “It should even have severe ripple results, especially 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 payments 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 court that implies justices are considering weakening or overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade determination that legalized abortion nearly 50 years ago.

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

The bill specifically authorizes doctors to remove a “dead unborn baby brought on by spontaneous abortion,” or miscarriage, or to remove an ectopic being pregnant, a doubtlessly life-threatening emergency that occurs when a fertilized egg implants outdoors the uterus, usually in a fallopian tube and early in being pregnant.

The legislation also doesn't apply to the use of morning-after drugs resembling Plan B or any sort 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 cease providing providers, it's unclear what is going to happen to ladies who qualify under one of the exceptions. The legislation’s creator, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says medical doctors will be empowered to resolve which girls qualify and that these abortions will be carried out in hospitals. But suppliers and abortion-rights activists warn that attempting to prove qualification could show troublesome and even dangerous in some circumstances.

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

Oklahoma’s law is styled after a first-of-its-kind Texas law that the U.S. Supreme Court docket has allowed to stay in place that allows personal citizens to sue abortion providers or anybody who helps a lady acquire 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 quickly blocked by the state’s Supreme Court

The third Oklahoma bill 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 contains no exceptions for rape or incest.