Oklahoma governor signs 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 within the nation to effectively end availability of the process.

State lawmakers accredited the ban enforced by civil lawsuits quite than felony prosecution, much like a Texas regulation that was passed last yr. The law takes effect instantly upon Stitt’s signature and prohibits all abortions with few exceptions. Abortion suppliers have said they will stop performing the procedure as quickly because the invoice is signed.

“I promised Oklahomans that as governor I might sign each piece of pro-life laws that came throughout my desk and I am proud to keep that promise at this time,” the first-term Republican mentioned in an announcement. “From the second life begins at conception is when we've a duty as human beings to do all the pieces we are able to to protect that child’s life and the life of the mom. That's 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 Court docket’s new conservative majority might additional restrict the observe, and that has especially been the case in Oklahoma and Texas.

“The affect will be disastrous for Oklahomans,” said Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst for the abortion-rights supporting Guttmacher Institute. “It'll also have severe 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 reduce abortion rights. It comes on the heels of a leaked draft opinion from the nation’s high court docket that means justices are contemplating weakening or overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade choice that legalized abortion nearly 50 years in the past.

The only exceptions within the Oklahoma regulation are to avoid wasting the life of a pregnant girl or if the being pregnant is the results of rape or incest that has been reported to regulation enforcement.

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

The law additionally doesn't apply to using morning-after tablets similar to Plan B or any sort 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 anticipated to cease offering companies, it's unclear what will happen to ladies who qualify beneath one of many exceptions. The legislation’s creator, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says docs can be empowered to resolve which ladies qualify and that those abortions will probably be carried out in hospitals. However providers and abortion-rights activists warn that making an attempt to prove qualification could show tough and even harmful in some circumstances.

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

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

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