Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt in Oklahoma Metropolis on Feb. 7, 2022. (Stephen Pingry / Tulsa World through AP File)
OKLAHOMA CITY --
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a invoice into legislation on Tuesday that makes it a felony to carry out an abortion, punishable by as much as 10 years in jail, as a part of an aggressive push in Republican-led states throughout the nation to cut back abortion rights.
The invoice, which takes impact 90 days after the Legislature adjourns subsequent month, makes an exception just for an abortion carried out to avoid wasting the lifetime of the mom. Abortion rights advocates say the invoice signed by the GOP governor is definite to face a authorized problem.
Its passage comes because the conservative U.S. Supreme Courtroom considers ratcheting again abortion rights which were in place for practically 50 years.
"We wish to outlaw abortion within the state of Oklahoma," Stitt stated throughout a signing ceremony for the invoice, flanked by anti-abortion lawmakers, clergy and college students. "I promised Oklahomans that I'd signal each pro-life invoice that hits my desk, and that is what we're doing right here at the moment."
Beneath the invoice, anybody convicted of performing an abortion would resist 10 years in jail and a US$100,000 effective. It doesn't authorize legal prices in opposition to a lady for receiving an abortion.
Sen. Nathan Dahm, a Damaged Arrow Republican now operating for Congress who wrote the invoice, referred to as it the "strongest pro-life laws within the nation proper now, which successfully eliminates abortion in Oklahoma."
Dahm stated the invoice would apply to any physicians in Oklahoma who dispense abortion medicine to ladies, which accounted for about 64% of all abortions carried out in Oklahoma in 2020, the newest 12 months for which statistics have been out there. There isn't a enforcement mechanism within the invoice for ladies who order abortion medicine on-line from out-of-state suppliers. Oklahoma lawmakers handed a invoice final 12 months to forestall ladies from ordering abortion medicine on-line, however that measure was blocked by the Oklahoma Supreme Courtroom.
Abortion rights advocates say the invoice is clearly unconstitutional, and related legal guidelines authorized not too long ago in Arkansas and Alabama have been blocked by federal courts.
White Home Press Secretary Jen Psaki launched an announcement Tuesday describing the invoice as an "unconstitutional assault on ladies's rights."
"Defending the correct acknowledged in Roe v. Wade continues to be a precedence for the Biden-Harris Administration, and we name on Congress to go the Ladies's Well being Safety Act, which might shut down these assaults and codify this long-recognized, constitutional proper," Psaki stated.
Though related anti-abortion payments authorized by the Oklahoma Legislature lately have been stopped as unconstitutional, anti-abortion lawmakers have been buoyed by the U.S. Supreme Courtroom's choice to permit new Texas abortion restrictions to stay in place.
The brand new Texas legislation, essentially the most restrictive anti-abortion legislation to take impact within the U.S. in many years, leaves enforcement as much as non-public residents, who're entitled to gather what critics name a "bounty" of $10,000 if they convey a profitable lawsuit in opposition to a supplier or anybody who helps a affected person acquire an abortion.
"The U.S. Supreme Courtroom's failure to cease Texas from nullifying the constitutional proper to abortion has emboldened different states to do the identical," Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the New York-based Heart for Reproductive Rights, stated in an announcement. "We have sued the state of Oklahoma ten instances within the final decade to guard abortion entry and we'll problem this legislation as properly to cease this travesty from ever taking impact."
A number of states, together with Oklahoma, are pursuing laws just like the Texas legislation this 12 months.
The Texas legislation bans abortion after roughly six weeks of being pregnant and makes no exceptions in instances of rape or incest. Abortions in Texas have plummeted by about 50% for the reason that legislation took impact, whereas the variety of Texans going to clinics out of state and requesting abortion drugs on-line has gone up. If the Oklahoma invoice have been allowed to take impact, ladies from Texas in search of abortions could be pressured to journey additional distances to Democratic-led states like Colorado and New Mexico, which have not too long ago handed legal guidelines to guard abortion entry.
One of many Texas-style Oklahoma payments that's one vote away from the governor's desk would ban abortions from the second of conception and would take impact instantly upon the governor's signature.
The U.S. Supreme Courtroom's conservative majority additionally has indicated they'd uphold a Mississippi legislation that bans abortions after 15 weeks of being pregnant and permit states to ban abortion a lot earlier. The courtroom might even overturn the nationwide proper to abortion that has existed for practically 50 years.
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