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 in the nation to effectively end availability of the procedure.

State lawmakers accredited the ban enforced by civil lawsuits fairly than legal prosecution, much like a Texas legislation that was handed last year. The law takes impact immediately upon Stitt’s signature and prohibits all abortions with few exceptions. Abortion suppliers have said they'll cease performing the procedure as quickly as the bill is signed.

“I promised Oklahomans that as governor I'd sign each piece of pro-life legislation that got here throughout my desk and I'm proud to keep that promise as we speak,” the first-term Republican mentioned in a press release. “From the moment life begins at conception is when we now have a responsibility as human beings to do all the pieces we are able to to protect that child’s life and the lifetime of the mother. That's what I believe and that is what nearly all of Oklahomans consider.”

Abortion providers throughout the nation have been bracing for the possibility that the U.S. Supreme Court docket’s new conservative majority would possibly further restrict the follow, and that has particularly been the case in Oklahoma and Texas.

“The influence might be disastrous for Oklahomans,” stated Elizabeth Nash, a state coverage analyst for the abortion-rights supporting Guttmacher Institute. “It'll even have extreme ripple results, particularly for Texas patients who had been traveling to Oklahoma in large numbers after the Texas six-week abortion ban went into impact 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 excessive courtroom that implies justices are considering weakening or overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade resolution that legalized abortion almost 50 years ago.

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

The bill specifically authorizes medical doctors to remove a “dead unborn youngster caused by spontaneous abortion,” or miscarriage, or to remove an ectopic being pregnant, 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 legislation also does not apply to the use of morning-after drugs akin to Plan B or any type 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 expected to stop providing companies, it's unclear what will occur to women who qualify underneath one of many exceptions. The law’s author, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says docs will be empowered to determine which girls qualify and that those abortions shall be carried out in hospitals. But suppliers and abortion-rights activists warn that trying to show qualification might prove troublesome and even dangerous in some circumstances.

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

Oklahoma’s regulation is styled after a first-of-its-kind Texas legislation that the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed to remain in place that enables personal residents to sue abortion providers or anyone who helps a lady obtain an abortion. Different Republican-led states sought to repeat Texas’ ban. Idaho’s governor signed the primary copycat measure in March, though it has been quickly blocked by the state’s Supreme Court

The third Oklahoma invoice is to take impact this summer time and would make it a felony to perform an abortion, punishable by up to 10 years in prison. That invoice contains no exceptions for rape or incest.