Oklahoma governor indicators Texas-style ban on most abortions

Oklahoma’s Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt has signed a Texas-style abortion ban that prohibits abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy

By SEAN MURPHY Related Press

3 Could 2022, 23:03

• 4 min read

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Oklahoma’s Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a Texas-style abortion ban on Tuesday that prohibits abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, part of a nationwide push in GOP-led states hopeful that the conservative U.S. Supreme Courtroom will uphold new restrictions.

“I want Oklahoma to be the most pro-life state in the nation," Stitt tweeted after signing the invoice.

Stitt's signing of the invoice comes on the heels of a leaked draft opinion from the nation's excessive court docket that it is contemplating weakening or overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion almost 50 years ago.

The bill Stitt signed takes impact immediately together with his signature, and the Oklahoma Supreme Court on Tuesday denied an emergency request to temporarily halt the invoice. Abortion providers say now that the new regulation is in effect, they'll instantly stop offering services for women after six weeks of being pregnant.

“While the regulation is in effect, which it now's because the governor signed it, abortion providers after six weeks might be largely unavailable," stated Rabia Muqaddam, a workers lawyer for the New York-based Heart for Reproductive Rights, which is representing Oklahoma abortion suppliers in the case. “It’s a short-term loss, but we’re hopeful that the Oklahoma Supreme Court will nonetheless grant us reduction."

The new regulation prohibits abortions as soon as cardiac activity could be detected in an embryo, which experts say is roughly six weeks into a being pregnant, earlier than many women know they're pregnant. A similar invoice permitted in Texas last yr led to a dramatic discount within the number of abortions carried out in that state, with many women going to Oklahoma and other surrounding states for the process.

Dr. Iman Alsaden, the medical director of Deliberate Parenthood Nice Plains, said Texas' regulation that took effect in September has given their workers an thought of what a post-Roe country would possibly seem like.

“Since that day, my colleagues and I have usually handled sufferers who're fleeing their communities to hunt care," Alsaden said. “They’re taking time without work of work, taking day out of faculty and taking time away from their household responsibilities to get the care that till September 2021 they had been in a position to get safely and readily in their communities."

The bill authorizes abortions if performed as the result of a medical emergency, but there aren't any exceptions if the being pregnant is the result of rape or incest.

Like the Texas law, the Oklahoma bill would enable personal residents to sue abortion providers or anybody who helps a woman get hold of an abortion for up to $10,000. After the U.S. Supreme Courtroom allowed that mechanism to stay in place, other Republican-led states sought to repeat Texas’ ban. Idaho’s governor signed the first copycat measure in March, although it has been briefly blocked by the state’s Supreme Court docket.

Stitt earlier this yr signed a invoice to make performing an abortion a felony crime in Oklahoma, however that measure shouldn't be set to take impact until this summer season, and legal consultants say it is prone to be blocked because the Roe v. Wade decision still stays the law of the land.

The number of abortions carried out each year in Oklahoma, which has 4 abortion clinics, has declined steadily over the past twenty years, from more than 6,200 in 2002 to three,737 in 2020, the fewest in more than 20 years, according to knowledge from the Oklahoma State Department of Well being. In 2020, before the Texas law was passed, about 9% of the abortions performed in Oklahoma have been women from Texas.

Before the Texas ban took effect on Sept. 1, about 40 women from Texas had abortions carried out in Oklahoma each month, the info exhibits. That quantity jumped to 222 Texas women in September and 243 in October.