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 in the nation to effectively end availability of the process.

State lawmakers authorised the ban enforced by civil lawsuits relatively than criminal prosecution, similar to a Texas law that was handed final 12 months. The regulation takes effect instantly upon Stitt’s signature and prohibits all abortions with few exceptions. Abortion suppliers have mentioned they'll stop performing the procedure as quickly because the invoice is signed.

“I promised Oklahomans that as governor I'd sign every piece of pro-life laws that came across my desk and I'm proud to keep that promise at present,” the first-term Republican said in a statement. “From the second life begins at conception is when we've a duty as human beings to do the whole lot we can to protect that baby’s life and the lifetime of the mom. That is what I believe and that is what the majority of Oklahomans believe.”

Abortion providers across the country have been bracing for the possibility that the U.S. Supreme Courtroom’s new conservative majority may additional limit the practice, and that has particularly been the case in Oklahoma and Texas.

“The impression will probably be disastrous for Oklahomans,” said Elizabeth Nash, a state coverage analyst for the abortion-rights supporting Guttmacher Institute. “It will also have extreme ripple effects, especially for Texas patients who had been touring to Oklahoma in large 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 reduce abortion rights. It comes on the heels of a leaked draft opinion from the nation’s high courtroom that implies justices are contemplating weakening or overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade resolution that legalized abortion nearly 50 years in the past.

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

The bill specifically authorizes doctors to remove a “dead unborn child brought on by spontaneous abortion,” or miscarriage, or to take away an ectopic pregnancy, a potentially life-threatening emergency that happens when a fertilized egg implants outdoors the uterus, often in a fallopian tube and early in pregnancy.

The legislation additionally does not apply to the use of morning-after drugs resembling Plan B or any type of contraception.

Two of Oklahoma’s four 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 expected to cease offering services, it is unclear what will happen to girls who qualify under one of many exceptions. The regulation’s writer, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says medical doctors will likely be empowered to resolve which ladies qualify and that those abortions might be carried out in hospitals. But providers and abortion-rights activists warn that attempting to prove qualification might show troublesome and even harmful in some circumstances.

In addition to the Texas-style invoice already signed into regulation, the measure is one in every of at least three anti-abortion payments sent this year to Stitt.

Oklahoma’s legislation is styled after a first-of-its-kind Texas legislation that the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed to remain in place that allows personal citizens to sue abortion suppliers or anyone who helps a woman get hold of an abortion. Different Republican-led states sought to repeat Texas’ ban. Idaho’s governor signed the primary copycat measure in March, though it has been quickly blocked by the state’s Supreme Court

The third Oklahoma bill 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 comprises no exceptions for rape or incest.