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 within the nation to successfully end availability of the procedure.

State lawmakers accepted the ban enforced by civil lawsuits slightly than criminal prosecution, just like a Texas regulation that was handed last year. The law takes impact instantly upon Stitt’s signature and prohibits all abortions with few exceptions. Abortion providers have stated they may cease performing the procedure as soon as the bill is signed.

“I promised Oklahomans that as governor I might signal every piece of pro-life laws that got here throughout my desk and I am proud to keep that promise at the moment,” the first-term Republican stated in a statement. “From the moment life begins at conception is when we've got a responsibility as human beings to do every part we will to protect that child’s life and the life of the mom. That's what I imagine and that's what the vast majority of Oklahomans consider.”

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

“The impression shall be disastrous for Oklahomans,” said Elizabeth Nash, a state coverage analyst for the abortion-rights supporting Guttmacher Institute. “It should also have severe ripple results, particularly for Texas sufferers who had been touring to Oklahoma in massive numbers after the Texas six-week abortion ban went into effect in September.”

The bills are 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 means justices are contemplating weakening or overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade resolution that legalized abortion nearly 50 years in the past.

The only 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 legislation enforcement.

The bill specifically authorizes docs to remove a “dead unborn baby brought on by spontaneous abortion,” or miscarriage, or to take away an ectopic pregnancy, a doubtlessly life-threatening emergency that occurs when a fertilized egg implants outdoors the uterus, often in a fallopian tube and early in being pregnant.

The regulation also doesn't apply to the use of morning-after pills similar 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 providers, it is unclear what's going to occur to girls who qualify underneath one of the exceptions. The regulation’s author, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says medical doctors can be empowered to decide which women qualify and that those abortions can be performed in hospitals. But suppliers and abortion-rights activists warn that trying to show qualification might show troublesome and even dangerous in some circumstances.

In addition to the Texas-style invoice already signed into law, the measure is certainly one of not less than three anti-abortion bills despatched this year to Stitt.

Oklahoma’s law is styled after a first-of-its-kind Texas legislation that the U.S. Supreme Court docket has allowed to stay in place that allows private residents to sue abortion providers or anybody who helps a lady get hold of an abortion. Different Republican-led states sought to repeat Texas’ ban. Idaho’s governor signed the first copycat measure in March, though it has been quickly blocked by the state’s Supreme Court docket

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 accommodates no exceptions for rape or incest.