Oklahoma governor indicators 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 first in the nation to successfully end availability of the procedure.

State lawmakers authorised the ban enforced by civil lawsuits moderately than felony prosecution, much like a Texas regulation that was passed last 12 months. The law takes effect immediately upon Stitt’s signature and prohibits all abortions with few exceptions. Abortion providers have stated they may cease performing the process as quickly as the invoice is signed.

“I promised Oklahomans that as governor I'd sign every bit of pro-life legislation that came throughout my desk and I am proud to keep that promise today,” the first-term Republican said in a statement. “From the moment life begins at conception is when we have a accountability as human beings to do every thing we can to guard that baby’s life and the life of the mom. That is what I imagine and that's what the vast majority of Oklahomans consider.”

Abortion providers throughout the nation have been bracing for the chance that the U.S. Supreme Courtroom’s new conservative majority may further restrict the practice, and that has particularly been the case in Oklahoma and Texas.

“The impression will be disastrous for Oklahomans,” mentioned Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst for the abortion-rights supporting Guttmacher Institute. “It should also have extreme ripple results, particularly for Texas sufferers who had been traveling 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 scale back abortion rights. It comes on the heels of a leaked draft opinion from the nation’s excessive court docket that means justices are considering weakening or overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nearly 50 years in the past.

The one exceptions in the Oklahoma regulation are to avoid wasting the life of a pregnant lady or if the being pregnant is the result of rape or incest that has been reported to legislation enforcement.

The invoice particularly authorizes docs to remove a “useless unborn child attributable to spontaneous abortion,” or miscarriage, or to remove an ectopic being pregnant, a doubtlessly life-threatening emergency that happens when a fertilized egg implants exterior the uterus, usually in a fallopian tube and early in being pregnant.

The legislation also does not apply to using morning-after pills resembling Plan B or any sort 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 anticipated to stop offering providers, it is unclear what is going to occur to girls who qualify below one of many exceptions. The law’s creator, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says doctors shall be empowered to decide which girls qualify and that those abortions will be carried out in hospitals. However suppliers and abortion-rights activists warn that attempting to prove qualification might show difficult and even dangerous in some circumstances.

Along with the Texas-style bill already signed into legislation, the measure is one in every of a minimum of three anti-abortion bills sent this year 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 private citizens to sue abortion suppliers or anyone who helps a lady get hold of an abortion. Different Republican-led states sought to copy Texas’ ban. Idaho’s governor signed the primary copycat measure in March, although it has been temporarily blocked by the state’s Supreme Court

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