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 finish availability of the procedure.

State lawmakers accredited the ban enforced by civil lawsuits somewhat than criminal prosecution, just like a Texas legislation that was handed final year. The law takes impact instantly upon Stitt’s signature and prohibits all abortions with few exceptions. Abortion providers have said they will cease performing the process as soon because the bill is signed.

“I promised Oklahomans that as governor I would signal every bit of pro-life legislation that got here throughout my desk and I am proud to maintain that promise immediately,” the first-term Republican stated in a statement. “From the moment life begins at conception is when now we have a duty as human beings to do all the pieces we are able to to protect that child’s life and the lifetime of the mom. That's what I believe and that's what the vast majority of Oklahomans consider.”

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

“The affect might be disastrous for Oklahomans,” stated Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst for the abortion-rights supporting Guttmacher Institute. “It'll also have extreme ripple results, 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 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 suggests justices are considering weakening or overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion almost 50 years in the past.

The one exceptions in the Oklahoma law are to avoid wasting the life of a pregnant girl or if the pregnancy is the results of rape or incest that has been reported to law enforcement.

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

The law also doesn't apply to using morning-after capsules reminiscent of Plan B or any kind 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 anticipated to cease providing companies, it is unclear what will happen to girls who qualify below one of many exceptions. The regulation’s writer, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says doctors will probably be empowered to determine which girls qualify and that these abortions will be performed in hospitals. But suppliers and abortion-rights activists warn that making an attempt to show qualification may show tough and even harmful in some circumstances.

Along with the Texas-style bill already signed into law, the measure is one in every of a minimum of three anti-abortion bills sent this yr to Stitt.

Oklahoma’s regulation is styled after a first-of-its-kind Texas regulation that the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed to remain in place that allows non-public residents to sue abortion suppliers or anybody who helps a woman receive an abortion. Other Republican-led states sought to copy Texas’ ban. Idaho’s governor signed the primary copycat measure in March, though it has been briefly 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 jail. That bill accommodates no exceptions for rape or incest.