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 end availability of the procedure.

State lawmakers accredited the ban enforced by civil lawsuits somewhat than felony prosecution, similar to a Texas legislation that was handed last year. The regulation takes impact immediately upon Stitt’s signature and prohibits all abortions with few exceptions. Abortion providers have said they'll stop performing the procedure as soon as the bill is signed.

“I promised Oklahomans that as governor I'd sign each piece of pro-life legislation that came across my desk and I am proud to maintain that promise right this moment,” the first-term Republican said in an announcement. “From the moment life begins at conception is when now we have a accountability as human beings to do the whole lot we can to guard that child’s life and the lifetime of the mother. That is what I consider and that is what nearly all of Oklahomans believe.”

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

“The impression can be disastrous for Oklahomans,” stated Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst for the abortion-rights supporting Guttmacher Institute. “It can even have extreme ripple results, particularly for Texas sufferers who had been touring to Oklahoma in massive numbers after the Texas six-week abortion ban went into impact 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 considering weakening or overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade resolution that legalized abortion almost 50 years ago.

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

The invoice particularly authorizes medical doctors to remove a “dead unborn baby caused by spontaneous abortion,” or miscarriage, or to take away an ectopic being pregnant, a potentially life-threatening emergency that happens when a fertilized egg implants outdoors the uterus, typically in a fallopian tube and early in being pregnant.

The regulation also doesn't apply to using morning-after drugs comparable to Plan B or any type of contraception.

Two of Oklahoma’s 4 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 expected to cease offering providers, it is unclear what is going to happen to girls who qualify under one of the exceptions. The law’s author, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says doctors will likely be empowered to decide which ladies qualify and that those abortions might be carried out in hospitals. But suppliers and abortion-rights activists warn that attempting to show qualification could prove troublesome and even harmful in some circumstances.

In addition to the Texas-style bill already signed into regulation, the measure is one of at the least three anti-abortion bills despatched this 12 months to Stitt.

Oklahoma’s legislation is styled after a first-of-its-kind Texas legislation that the U.S. Supreme Court docket has allowed to remain in place that enables personal residents to sue abortion providers or anyone who helps a girl obtain 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 briefly blocked by the state’s Supreme Court

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