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 in the nation to effectively finish availability of the procedure.

State lawmakers permitted the ban enforced by civil lawsuits moderately than prison prosecution, similar to a Texas legislation that was passed final yr. The law takes effect instantly upon Stitt’s signature and prohibits all abortions with few exceptions. Abortion providers have mentioned they are going to cease performing the procedure as quickly as the bill is signed.

“I promised Oklahomans that as governor I would signal every bit of pro-life laws that got here throughout my desk and I'm proud to keep that promise right this moment,” the first-term Republican said in a statement. “From the second life begins at conception is when now we have a responsibility as human beings to do everything we can to guard that child’s life and the life of the mother. That's what I imagine and that is what the majority of Oklahomans believe.”

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

“The impression will probably be disastrous for Oklahomans,” stated Elizabeth Nash, a state coverage analyst for the abortion-rights supporting Guttmacher Institute. “It should also have extreme ripple results, particularly for Texas patients who had been touring to Oklahoma in giant 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 reduce abortion rights. It comes on the heels of a leaked draft opinion from the nation’s high court docket that implies justices are contemplating weakening or overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade resolution that legalized abortion practically 50 years in the past.

The only exceptions in the Oklahoma legislation are to avoid wasting the lifetime of a pregnant woman or if the being pregnant is the result of rape or incest that has been reported to law enforcement.

The invoice particularly authorizes medical doctors to remove a “lifeless unborn baby attributable to spontaneous abortion,” or miscarriage, or to remove an ectopic being pregnant, a potentially life-threatening emergency that occurs when a fertilized egg implants exterior the uterus, usually in a fallopian tube and early in pregnancy.

The legislation additionally doesn't apply to the usage of morning-after pills corresponding 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 anticipated to cease providing providers, it is unclear what's going to happen to girls who qualify underneath one of the exceptions. The law’s writer, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says docs will be empowered to resolve which women qualify and that those abortions will likely be performed in hospitals. However suppliers and abortion-rights activists warn that trying to prove qualification may show troublesome and even dangerous in some circumstances.

Along with the Texas-style bill already signed into legislation, the measure is certainly one of at the least three anti-abortion payments despatched this yr to Stitt.

Oklahoma’s legislation is styled after a first-of-its-kind Texas law that the U.S. Supreme Court docket has allowed to stay in place that enables non-public residents to sue abortion providers or anyone 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, although it has been quickly blocked by the state’s Supreme Courtroom

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