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 authorised the ban enforced by civil lawsuits moderately than felony prosecution, similar to a Texas regulation that was handed final year. The legislation takes effect instantly upon Stitt’s signature and prohibits all abortions with few exceptions. Abortion suppliers have mentioned they'll cease performing the procedure as soon as the invoice is signed.

“I promised Oklahomans that as governor I would sign every piece of pro-life legislation that came across my desk and I'm proud to keep that promise at present,” the first-term Republican mentioned in an announcement. “From the second life begins at conception is when we've got a accountability as human beings to do all the things we will to protect that baby’s life and the lifetime of the mom. That's what I imagine and that's what the majority of Oklahomans believe.”

Abortion providers across the nation have been bracing for the chance that the U.S. Supreme Court docket’s new conservative majority may additional prohibit the follow, and that has especially been the case in Oklahoma and Texas.

“The affect will probably be disastrous for Oklahomans,” mentioned Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst for the abortion-rights supporting Guttmacher Institute. “It will also have severe ripple results, especially for Texas patients who had been traveling to Oklahoma in giant numbers after the Texas six-week abortion ban went into effect in September.”

The bills 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 docket that implies justices are contemplating weakening or overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion almost 50 years ago.

The only exceptions in the Oklahoma legislation are to save lots of 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 particularly authorizes docs to remove a “useless unborn youngster brought on by spontaneous abortion,” or miscarriage, or to take away an ectopic being pregnant, a probably life-threatening emergency that happens when a fertilized egg implants outdoors the uterus, typically in a fallopian tube and early in being pregnant.

The law additionally does not apply to the use of morning-after drugs resembling Plan B or any kind 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 providing services, it is unclear what is going to occur to ladies who qualify beneath one of many exceptions. The legislation’s creator, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says doctors will likely be empowered to decide which girls qualify and that those abortions will be carried out in hospitals. But suppliers and abortion-rights activists warn that attempting to show qualification might show troublesome and even dangerous in some circumstances.

Along with the Texas-style invoice already signed into law, the measure is one of not less than three anti-abortion bills despatched this year to Stitt.

Oklahoma’s legislation is styled after a first-of-its-kind Texas regulation that the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed to remain in place that enables private citizens to sue abortion providers or anybody who helps a lady receive an abortion. Other Republican-led states sought to copy Texas’ ban. Idaho’s governor signed the primary copycat measure in March, although it has been temporarily blocked by the state’s Supreme Courtroom

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 prison. That bill contains no exceptions for rape or incest.