Oklahoma governor indicators 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 first in the nation to effectively end availability of the procedure.

State lawmakers approved the ban enforced by civil lawsuits moderately than felony prosecution, similar to a Texas legislation that was handed final 12 months. The regulation takes impact instantly upon Stitt’s signature and prohibits all abortions with few exceptions. Abortion suppliers have mentioned 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 got here across my desk and I am proud to maintain that promise at this time,” the first-term Republican stated in a statement. “From the second life begins at conception is when we have a responsibility as human beings to do everything we are able to to protect that child’s life and the lifetime of the mother. That is what I believe and that is what the majority of Oklahomans consider.”

Abortion providers throughout the nation have been bracing for the likelihood that the U.S. Supreme Court docket’s new conservative majority may further limit the practice, and that has especially been the case in Oklahoma and Texas.

“The impression shall be disastrous for Oklahomans,” stated Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst for the abortion-rights supporting Guttmacher Institute. “It can also have extreme ripple results, particularly for Texas patients who had been touring to Oklahoma in massive 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 excessive court that suggests justices are considering weakening or overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade resolution that legalized abortion practically 50 years ago.

The one exceptions in the Oklahoma regulation are to save lots of the lifetime of a pregnant woman or if the pregnancy is the results of rape or incest that has been reported to legislation enforcement.

The bill specifically authorizes doctors to take away a “lifeless unborn baby attributable to 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, often in a fallopian tube and early in pregnancy.

The regulation also does not apply to the use of morning-after tablets equivalent 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 expected to stop providing services, it's unclear what is going to happen to girls who qualify underneath one of the exceptions. The law’s writer, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says doctors might be empowered to decide which girls qualify and that these abortions shall be performed in hospitals. However providers and abortion-rights activists warn that attempting to prove qualification could show difficult and even dangerous in some circumstances.

In addition to the Texas-style invoice already signed into legislation, the measure is one of not less than three anti-abortion payments despatched this yr to Stitt.

Oklahoma’s regulation is styled after a first-of-its-kind Texas regulation that the U.S. Supreme Court docket has allowed to stay in place that permits personal residents to sue abortion suppliers or anybody who helps a girl get hold of an abortion. Other Republican-led states sought to copy Texas’ ban. Idaho’s governor signed the first copycat measure in March, though it has been temporarily blocked by the state’s Supreme Court docket

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