Oklahoma governor indicators 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 primary in the nation to successfully end availability of the procedure.

State lawmakers authorized the ban enforced by civil lawsuits slightly than criminal prosecution, much like a Texas legislation that was passed last yr. The law takes impact immediately upon Stitt’s signature and prohibits all abortions with few exceptions. Abortion providers have said they will stop performing the process as soon as the bill is signed.

“I promised Oklahomans that as governor I would sign every piece of pro-life laws that came across my desk and I am proud to maintain that promise immediately,” the first-term Republican said in a press release. “From the moment life begins at conception is when we've a duty as human beings to do every little thing we can to guard that baby’s life and the lifetime of the mom. That is what I imagine and that's what the vast majority of Oklahomans believe.”

Abortion providers across the country have been bracing for the possibility 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 affect might be disastrous for Oklahomans,” said Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst for the abortion-rights supporting Guttmacher Institute. “It should even have severe ripple effects, especially for Texas patients who had been touring 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 reduce abortion rights. It comes on the heels of a leaked draft opinion from the nation’s high court that means justices are considering weakening or overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade resolution that legalized abortion almost 50 years in the past.

The only exceptions in the Oklahoma regulation are to save lots of the lifetime 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 “lifeless unborn youngster brought on by spontaneous abortion,” or miscarriage, or to take away an ectopic pregnancy, a potentially 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 use of morning-after drugs resembling Plan B or any kind of contraception.

Two of Oklahoma’s four abortion clinics already stopped offering abortions after the governor signed a six-week ban earlier this month.

With the state’s two remaining abortion clinics anticipated to cease offering services, it's unclear what will occur to girls who qualify below one of many exceptions. The regulation’s writer, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says doctors will likely 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 show qualification could show troublesome and even harmful in some circumstances.

In addition to the Texas-style invoice already signed into law, the measure is one in every of at the very least three anti-abortion bills sent this yr to Stitt.

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

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