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 successfully end availability of the procedure.

State lawmakers authorized the ban enforced by civil lawsuits moderately than legal prosecution, just like a Texas law that was passed last 12 months. The legislation takes impact immediately upon Stitt’s signature and prohibits all abortions with few exceptions. Abortion suppliers have mentioned they are going to cease performing the procedure as soon because the bill is signed.

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

Abortion providers throughout the nation have been bracing for the likelihood that the U.S. Supreme Courtroom’s new conservative majority might further prohibit the practice, and that has especially been the case in Oklahoma and Texas.

“The affect will probably be disastrous for Oklahomans,” said Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst for the abortion-rights supporting Guttmacher Institute. “It should even have severe ripple effects, especially for Texas sufferers who had been touring to Oklahoma in giant numbers after the Texas six-week abortion ban went into effect in September.”

The bills 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 high court docket that means justices are considering weakening or overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade choice that legalized abortion nearly 50 years in the past.

The one exceptions within the Oklahoma law are to save lots of 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 bill particularly authorizes medical doctors to take away a “useless unborn baby caused by spontaneous abortion,” or miscarriage, or to take away an ectopic pregnancy, a doubtlessly life-threatening emergency that occurs when a fertilized egg implants exterior the uterus, often in a fallopian tube and early in being pregnant.

The regulation also doesn't apply to the use of morning-after capsules comparable 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 providing services, it's unclear what is going to occur to women who qualify beneath one of many exceptions. The legislation’s writer, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says docs will probably be empowered to determine which ladies qualify and that these abortions shall be performed in hospitals. However suppliers and abortion-rights activists warn that attempting to prove qualification may prove tough and even dangerous in some circumstances.

In addition to the Texas-style invoice already signed into legislation, the measure is certainly one of a minimum of three anti-abortion payments sent this year to Stitt.

Oklahoma’s regulation is styled after a first-of-its-kind Texas regulation that the U.S. Supreme Court docket has allowed to remain in place that allows non-public citizens to sue abortion providers or anybody who helps a woman obtain an abortion. Other Republican-led states sought to copy Texas’ ban. Idaho’s governor signed the first 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 and would make it a felony to perform an abortion, punishable by as much as 10 years in jail. That bill incorporates no exceptions for rape or incest.