Oklahoma governor signs the nation’s strictest abortion ban

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt on Wednesday signed into regulation the nation’s strictest abortion ban, making the state the first within the nation to effectively end availability of the procedure.

State lawmakers accepted the ban enforced by civil lawsuits fairly than legal prosecution, just like a Texas regulation that was handed final yr. The law takes effect instantly upon Stitt’s signature and prohibits all abortions with few exceptions. Abortion suppliers have mentioned they'll cease performing the process as quickly as the bill is signed.

“I promised Oklahomans that as governor I would sign every piece of pro-life legislation that got here across my desk and I'm proud to keep that promise immediately,” the first-term Republican said in an announcement. “From the second life begins at conception is when now we have a accountability as human beings to do every part we will to protect that baby’s life and the lifetime of the mom. That is what I consider and that's what the vast majority of Oklahomans imagine.”

Abortion suppliers across the country have been bracing for the likelihood that the U.S. Supreme Courtroom’s new conservative majority may further limit the follow, and that has particularly been the case in Oklahoma and Texas.

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

The one exceptions in the Oklahoma regulation are to save lots of the lifetime of a pregnant girl or if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest that has been reported to regulation enforcement.

The invoice particularly authorizes docs to take away a “dead unborn baby caused by spontaneous abortion,” or miscarriage, or to remove an ectopic being pregnant, a probably life-threatening emergency that happens when a fertilized egg implants exterior the uterus, typically in a fallopian tube and early in pregnancy.

The regulation additionally doesn't apply to the use of morning-after tablets resembling Plan B or any kind 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 expected to stop providing companies, it's unclear what's going to occur to girls who qualify below one of the exceptions. The legislation’s creator, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says doctors can be empowered to resolve which women qualify and that these abortions will probably be performed in hospitals. But suppliers and abortion-rights activists warn that attempting to prove qualification could prove troublesome and even dangerous in some circumstances.

In addition to the Texas-style invoice already signed into regulation, the measure is one among not less than three anti-abortion payments despatched this yr to Stitt.

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

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