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 primary in the nation to successfully end availability of the procedure.

State lawmakers approved the ban enforced by civil lawsuits somewhat than legal prosecution, just like a Texas legislation that was passed final 12 months. The legislation takes impact immediately upon Stitt’s signature and prohibits all abortions with few exceptions. Abortion providers have said they may cease performing the process as quickly as the bill is signed.

“I promised Oklahomans that as governor I would sign each piece of pro-life legislation that got here across my desk and I'm proud to maintain that promise as we speak,” the first-term Republican said in a press release. “From the moment life begins at conception is when we've a accountability as human beings to do every thing we will to guard that child’s life and the lifetime of the mom. That is what I imagine and that's what the majority of Oklahomans imagine.”

Abortion providers throughout the nation have been bracing for the chance that the U.S. Supreme Courtroom’s new conservative majority would possibly further prohibit the practice, and that has particularly been the case in Oklahoma and Texas.

“The influence might be disastrous for Oklahomans,” mentioned Elizabeth Nash, a state coverage analyst for the abortion-rights supporting Guttmacher Institute. “It'll even have severe ripple effects, particularly for Texas sufferers who had been traveling to Oklahoma in large 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 cut back abortion rights. It comes on the heels of a leaked draft opinion from the nation’s high court that suggests justices are contemplating weakening or overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade determination that legalized abortion practically 50 years ago.

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

The bill specifically authorizes docs to take away a “dead unborn little one attributable to spontaneous abortion,” or miscarriage, or to take away an ectopic pregnancy, a probably life-threatening emergency that occurs when a fertilized egg implants exterior the uterus, typically in a fallopian tube and early in being pregnant.

The regulation additionally doesn't apply to the usage of morning-after tablets such as Plan B or any sort of contraception.

Two of Oklahoma’s four 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 providing providers, it's unclear what will happen to women who qualify underneath one of many exceptions. The law’s writer, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says medical doctors will probably be empowered to resolve which girls qualify and that those abortions will be carried out in hospitals. But suppliers and abortion-rights activists warn that trying to prove qualification might show troublesome and even dangerous in some circumstances.

Along with the Texas-style bill already signed into legislation, the measure is one in all a minimum of three anti-abortion bills sent this 12 months to Stitt.

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

The third Oklahoma invoice 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 bill comprises no exceptions for rape or incest.