Oklahoma governor signs the nation’s strictest abortion ban

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt on Wednesday signed into regulation the nation’s strictest abortion ban, making the state the first within the nation to successfully finish availability of the procedure.

State lawmakers authorized the ban enforced by civil lawsuits fairly than prison prosecution, similar to a Texas regulation that was passed last yr. The regulation takes effect immediately upon Stitt’s signature and prohibits all abortions with few exceptions. Abortion providers have said they are going to stop performing the procedure as soon as the invoice is signed.

“I promised Oklahomans that as governor I would sign every piece of pro-life legislation that got here across my desk and I'm proud to maintain that promise right now,” the first-term Republican stated in a statement. “From the second life begins at conception is when we now have a accountability as human beings to do every part we can to guard that baby’s life and the lifetime of the mother. That's what I believe and that's what nearly all of Oklahomans believe.”

Abortion suppliers throughout the nation have been bracing for the possibility that the U.S. Supreme Court docket’s new conservative majority would possibly further prohibit the observe, and that has especially been the case in Oklahoma and Texas.

“The influence will be disastrous for Oklahomans,” said Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst for the abortion-rights supporting Guttmacher Institute. “It's going to also have severe ripple results, especially for Texas sufferers who had been touring to Oklahoma in large 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 reduce abortion rights. It comes on the heels of a leaked draft opinion from the nation’s excessive court that implies justices are considering weakening or overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade resolution that legalized abortion nearly 50 years in the past.

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

The bill specifically authorizes doctors to remove a “lifeless unborn child brought on by spontaneous abortion,” or miscarriage, or to remove an ectopic being pregnant, a potentially life-threatening emergency that happens when a fertilized egg implants outdoors the uterus, usually in a fallopian tube and early in being pregnant.

The regulation also does not apply to using morning-after pills reminiscent of Plan B or any type 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 stop offering providers, it is unclear what is going to happen to women who qualify underneath one of many exceptions. The regulation’s creator, State Rep. Wendi Stearman, says doctors will likely be empowered to decide which women qualify and that those abortions shall be performed in hospitals. However suppliers and abortion-rights activists warn that trying to show qualification may show difficult and even harmful in some circumstances.

Along with the Texas-style invoice already signed into regulation, the measure is one among at the least three anti-abortion payments despatched this year 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 citizens to sue abortion suppliers 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 effect this summer time and would make it a felony to carry out an abortion, punishable by up to 10 years in prison. That bill incorporates no exceptions for rape or incest.