Oklahoma governor signs the nation’s strictest abortion ban

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt on Wednesday signed into law the nation’s strictest abortion ban, making the state the primary in the nation to successfully end availability of the process.

State lawmakers accredited the ban enforced by civil lawsuits quite than prison prosecution, similar to a Texas legislation that was handed final yr. The regulation takes impact immediately upon Stitt’s signature and prohibits all abortions with few exceptions. Abortion providers have said they will cease performing the process as quickly because the invoice is signed.

“I promised Oklahomans that as governor I might signal every piece of pro-life laws that got here across my desk and I'm proud to keep that promise immediately,” the first-term Republican mentioned in a statement. “From the moment life begins at conception is when we have now a accountability as human beings to do every little thing we can to guard that child’s life and the lifetime of the mother. That's what I imagine and that's what the vast majority of Oklahomans consider.”

Abortion suppliers throughout the nation have been bracing for the chance that the U.S. Supreme Court docket’s new conservative majority might additional prohibit the observe, and that has particularly been the case in Oklahoma and Texas.

“The impression might be disastrous for Oklahomans,” said Elizabeth Nash, a state coverage analyst for the abortion-rights supporting Guttmacher Institute. “It will even have severe ripple results, especially for Texas patients who had been touring to Oklahoma in large numbers after the Texas six-week abortion ban went into impact in September.”

The bills are 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 courtroom that suggests justices are contemplating weakening or overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion almost 50 years ago.

The only exceptions in the Oklahoma regulation are to save lots of the life of a pregnant woman or if the being pregnant is the result of rape or incest that has been reported to regulation enforcement.

The bill specifically authorizes medical doctors to remove a “dead unborn baby attributable to spontaneous abortion,” or miscarriage, or to remove an ectopic being pregnant, a potentially life-threatening emergency that happens when a fertilized egg implants exterior the uterus, typically in a fallopian tube and early in being pregnant.

The law also doesn't apply to the usage of morning-after capsules resembling Plan B or any type of contraception.

Two of Oklahoma’s 4 abortion clinics already stopped offering abortions after the governor signed a six-week ban earlier this month.

With the state’s two remaining abortion clinics anticipated to cease offering providers, it is unclear what is going to happen to women who qualify underneath one of many exceptions. The regulation’s author, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says docs will likely be empowered to determine which women qualify and that those abortions will probably be performed in hospitals. But suppliers and abortion-rights activists warn that trying to prove qualification might show tough and even dangerous in some circumstances.

Along with the Texas-style invoice already signed into legislation, the measure is one of at the very least three anti-abortion payments sent this yr 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 permits non-public citizens to sue abortion providers or anybody who helps a lady obtain an abortion. Different Republican-led states sought to repeat 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 time and would make it a felony to carry out an abortion, punishable by up to 10 years in jail. That invoice comprises no exceptions for rape or incest.