Oklahoma governor indicators 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 successfully end availability of the process.

State lawmakers accredited the ban enforced by civil lawsuits quite than felony prosecution, much like a Texas legislation that was handed final year. The law takes effect immediately upon Stitt’s signature and prohibits all abortions with few exceptions. Abortion providers have said they will cease performing the procedure as quickly because the invoice is signed.

“I promised Oklahomans that as governor I might sign every bit of pro-life laws that came across my desk and I'm proud to maintain that promise right now,” the first-term Republican said in an announcement. “From the second life begins at conception is when we now have a duty as human beings to do every little thing we are able to to guard that baby’s life and the life of the mother. That is what I believe and that is what the vast majority of Oklahomans imagine.”

Abortion providers across the country have been bracing for the possibility that the U.S. Supreme Court’s new conservative majority might further limit the follow, and that has especially been the case in Oklahoma and Texas.

“The influence might be disastrous for Oklahomans,” mentioned Elizabeth Nash, a state coverage analyst for the abortion-rights supporting Guttmacher Institute. “It would also have severe ripple effects, especially for Texas patients who had been touring to Oklahoma in massive numbers after the Texas six-week abortion ban went into impact in September.”

The payments are a 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 excessive court that implies justices are considering weakening or overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade resolution that legalized abortion almost 50 years in the past.

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

The invoice particularly authorizes doctors to take away a “lifeless unborn youngster attributable to spontaneous abortion,” or miscarriage, or to take away an ectopic pregnancy, 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 usage of morning-after pills equivalent to 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 cease offering services, it's unclear what will occur to ladies who qualify beneath one of many exceptions. The regulation’s writer, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says medical doctors will likely be empowered to decide which ladies qualify and that these abortions might be performed in hospitals. But providers and abortion-rights activists warn that making an attempt to prove qualification might show tough and even dangerous in some circumstances.

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

Oklahoma’s law is styled after a first-of-its-kind Texas legislation that the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed to stay in place that allows non-public citizens to sue abortion suppliers or anybody who helps a woman receive an abortion. Different 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 docket

The third Oklahoma bill is to take effect this summer 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.