An individual holds an indication in the course of the Bans Off Oklahoma Rally on the steps on Oklahoma state Capitol in Oklahoma Metropolis, Tuesday, April, 5, 2022. (Sarah Phipps/The Oklahoman by way of AP)
OKLAHOMA CITY --
The Oklahoma Home gave closing legislative approval on Tuesday to a invoice that will make performing an abortion a felony, punishable by as much as 10 years in jail.
With little dialogue and no debate, the Republican-controlled Home voted 70-14 to ship the invoice to Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, who has beforehand stated he'd signal any anti-abortion invoice that involves his desk.
The invoice is one among a number of anti-abortion measures nonetheless alive in Oklahoma's Legislature this 12 months, a part of a pattern of GOP-led states passing aggressive anti-abortion laws because the conservative U.S. Supreme Court docket is contemplating ratcheting again abortion rights which have been in place for practically 50 years.
The Oklahoma invoice, which handed the Senate final 12 months, makes an exception just for an abortion carried out to avoid wasting the lifetime of the mom, stated GOP state Rep. Jim Olsen, of Roland, who sponsored the invoice. Beneath the invoice, an individual convicted of performing an abortion would withstand 10 years in jail and a $100,000 effective.
“The penalties are for the physician, not for the lady,” Olsen stated.
Related anti-abortion payments accredited by the Oklahoma Legislature and in different conservative states lately have been stopped by the courts as unconstitutional, however anti-abortion lawmakers have been buoyed by the U.S. Supreme Court docket's resolution to permit new Texas abortion restrictions to stay in place. The brand new Texas legislation, essentially the most restrictive anti-abortion legislation within the U.S. in many years, leaves enforcement as much as personal residents, who're entitled to gather what critics name a “bounty” of $10,000 if they carry a profitable lawsuit towards a supplier or anybody who helps a affected person receive an abortion. A number of states, together with Oklahoma, are pursuing related laws this 12 months.
The Oklahoma invoice's passage got here on the identical day as greater than 100 individuals attended a “Bans Off Oklahoma” rally exterior the Capitol in assist of abortion rights.
“These legislators have continued their relentless assaults on our freedoms,” stated Emily Wales, interim president and CEO of Deliberate Parenthood Nice Plains Votes. “These restrictions will not be about bettering the security of the work that we do. They're about shaming and stigmatizing individuals who want and deserve abortion entry.”
Wales stated Deliberate Parenthood's abortion clinic in Oklahoma has seen an 800% enhance within the variety of girls from Texas after that state handed its new anti-abortion legislation final 12 months.
The Texas legislation bans abortion as soon as cardiac exercise is detected, normally round six weeks of being pregnant, with out exceptions in instances of rape or incest.
Additionally Tuesday, the Oklahoma Home adopted a decision to acknowledge lives misplaced because of abortion and urge residents to fly flags at half-staff on Jan. 22, the day the U.S. Supreme Court docket legalized abortion in its landmark 1973 resolution in Roe v. Wade.
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