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

State lawmakers authorized the ban enforced by civil lawsuits moderately than legal prosecution, similar to a Texas legislation that was passed last yr. The law takes effect instantly upon Stitt’s signature and prohibits all abortions with few exceptions. Abortion providers have mentioned they may stop performing the process as soon because the bill is signed.

“I promised Oklahomans that as governor I might sign every piece of pro-life legislation that got here across my desk and I am proud to keep that promise today,” the first-term Republican said in an announcement. “From the moment life begins at conception is when we've a duty as human beings to do every little thing we can to protect that child’s life and the lifetime of the mom. That's what I imagine and that's what the vast majority of Oklahomans believe.”

Abortion providers across the country have been bracing for the likelihood that the U.S. Supreme Court’s new conservative majority may additional limit the apply, and that has especially been the case in Oklahoma and Texas.

“The impression will be disastrous for Oklahomans,” stated Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst for the abortion-rights supporting Guttmacher Institute. “It would also have severe ripple results, especially for Texas sufferers who had been touring to Oklahoma in giant 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 courtroom that means justices are contemplating weakening or overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade determination that legalized abortion practically 50 years in the past.

The only exceptions within the Oklahoma legislation are to avoid wasting the life of a pregnant woman or if the being pregnant is the result of rape or incest that has been reported to law enforcement.

The invoice particularly authorizes medical doctors to take away a “lifeless unborn youngster caused by spontaneous abortion,” or miscarriage, or to remove an ectopic pregnancy, a potentially life-threatening emergency that occurs when a fertilized egg implants outdoors the uterus, often in a fallopian tube and early in pregnancy.

The law additionally doesn't apply to the use of morning-after tablets comparable to Plan B or any sort of contraception.

Two of Oklahoma’s 4 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 providing companies, it is unclear what will happen to women who qualify beneath one of the exceptions. The regulation’s creator, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says docs will be empowered to determine which women qualify and that those abortions will be carried out in hospitals. However suppliers and abortion-rights activists warn that attempting to prove qualification could show tough and even harmful in some circumstances.

Along with the Texas-style bill already signed into regulation, the measure is certainly one of a minimum of three anti-abortion bills sent this year to Stitt.

Oklahoma’s legislation is styled after a first-of-its-kind Texas law that the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed to stay in place that allows personal citizens to sue abortion providers or anybody who helps a girl acquire an abortion. Different 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 Court

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