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Oklahoma House approved A Republican bill Thursday would ban abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
The law will take effect immediately, cutting off access to Texas patients who flooded Oklahoma after a similar law was passed there last fall.
On the eve of the long-awaited decision of the US Supreme Court on abortion, which is expected this summer, the measure in Oklahoma shows that the United States is not waiting for the Supreme Court to overturn the landmark Rowe vs. Wade a decision guaranteeing abortion rights before taking action to limit the procedure within their own limits.
The Oklahoma bill is modeled after a restrictive ban in Texas that avoided court intervention with a new legal strategy that gives private citizens the right to enforce the law.
The bill that includes medical exceptions, but not rape or incest, the Oklahoma Senate approved in March. It is now going to Governor Kevin Stitt (R), who is expected to sign it and will enter into force with his signature.
The vote of the Chamber was 68-12.
“Oklahoma is a very pro-life state and we want to protect newborn babies who are in Oklahoma and in the world,” said State Representative Todd Russ (R), who co-authored the legislation.
The measure would immediately cut off most access to abortion in a state that has taken in nearly half of all Texas patients who have been forced to leave their state for abortion because of Texas law.
Several clinics in Oklahoma have stopped planning abortions pending the bill. The other clinics are ready to cease their activities at any moment.
“It was almost impossible to plan,” said Andrea Gallegos, executive administrator at the Women’s Clinic in Tulsa, an independent abortion clinic that promised to continue providing abortions until Stit signs the bill. “We have a full schedule.”
Steve signed another abortion ban earlier this month, making abortion a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison. But Oklahoma abortion advocates see the latest Texas ban as a far more immediate threat than its predecessor, which is not expected to take effect until the summer. The latest abortion ban will also be more difficult to challenge in court due to the new enforcement mechanism behind the Texas ban, which allows private citizens to enforce the law through civil cases and so far allows Texas law to avoid judicial interference.
Another abortion ban, also modeled on the Texas law, which will ban the procedure altogether, is also due to receive a vote at the Oklahoma House on Thursday. This bill is also expected to be adopted.
Oklahoma lawmakers have approved a bill to make abortion illegal
Oklahoma lawmakers say the wave of anti-abortion legislation is partly a reaction to the recent increase in patients in Texas. Of the thousands of Texas patients who traveled outside the state for abortions between September and December, 45 percent went to Oklahoma, according to a recent study from the University of Texas at Austin.
“A state of emergency exists in Oklahoma,” said U.S. Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Treat (R), the Senate leader who introduced the six-week a ban, citing the number of abortions performed in Oklahoma since Texas passed its law.
“It’s disgusting,” Trit said. “And that’s why we’re working hard to change our laws.”
Several states are not awaiting a Supreme Court ruling this summer. Two abortion clinics in Kentucky stopped abortions for a week in mid-April after Republican lawmakers passed a broad package of restrictions on abortion that they said made it impossible to continue abortion care, a law now temporarily blocked by the courts.
And lawmakers in 13 states, including Oklahoma, unveiled their own versions of the law in Texas, which could go into effect despite a Supreme Court ruling this summer.
Many anti-abortion lawmakers see Texas’ strategy as a promising way forward, despite widespread criticism from legal scholars that it reduces the power of the courts. Since September, the Supreme Court has missed three options to lift the ban in Texas, a move some Republicans have interpreted as a green light for this type of legislation.
In Missouri, for example, Mary State Secretary Elizabeth Coleman (right) said she felt newly optimistic about the prospects for a Texas-style abortion ban she proposed after the Supreme Court announced its decision in December to leave the law to Texas in force.
I thought, “Okay, my account has legs,” Coleman said of her measure.
Apart from Oklahoma, Idaho is the only other state to have successfully passed a Texas-style ban, although several others, including Coleman’s measure in Missouri, are still moving through the legislature. The Idaho law, which was due to take effect on April 22 after it was signed by Gov. Brad Little (R), was temporarily blocked by the state’s Supreme Court, pending further review.
Planned Parenthood plans to file a lawsuit against Oklahoma’s latest ban. While the ban on abortions in Texas was heard by the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the 5th District, widely known as the most conservative district court in the country, the ban in Oklahoma will pass through the 10th District, where judges may be more critical of the law. .
“Unless these bans are blocked, patients will be rejected, abortion seekers will not be able to receive basic care in their own communities, and their loved ones may be stopped from supporting them for fear of trial,” Alexis McGill Johnson said. , president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement.
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