May 19 (Reuters) – Oklahoma lawmakers on Thursday finally approved a bill that would ban almost all abortions and allow private citizens to prosecute anyone who helps women terminate their pregnancies.
The bill will take effect as soon as it is signed by Republican Gov. Kevin Steet, making it the most restrictive abortion ban in the United States.
Republican-backed legislation prohibits abortion from the moment of “fertilization,” making exceptions only in cases of emergency medical care, rape, or incest. The text of the bill says it does not prohibit the use of contraception or emergency contraception.
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Trust Women, which runs a clinic in Oklahoma City, called the bill “gratuitous and cruel.”
“Our patients are frightened, confused by the new reality in which they now live,” the clinic said in a statement.
The Center for Reproductive Rights, a global advocacy group based in New York, said Thursday it would challenge the ban in state court.
Oklahoma is among the Republican-led states in the country rushing to pass anti-abortion laws this year, expecting the U.S. Supreme Court to soon overturn Rowe v. Wade, the 1973 case that established the constitutional right to abortion.
A draft opinion that expired earlier this month showed that the court’s conservative majority intends to review federal abortion rights and return the issue of legalization to individual states.
Republican-backed laws remain vulnerable to legal challenges pending that decision. A federal judge on Thursday extended a blockade of a recently passed law in Kentucky that will force clinics to stop offering abortions until they meet certain requirements. Read more
Oklahoma Gov. Stet said he would sign any anti-abortion legislation that reaches his office.
The state passed a bill this month banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, unlike fertilization. Like the latter measure, it relies on the enforcement of civil cases.
The implementing provisions in both bills were modeled on Texas legislation that went into effect in September and stopped clinics from performing almost all abortions in the state.
Oklahoma has quickly become a destination for women in Texas seeking abortions in six weeks.
But the introduction of Oklahoma’s own six-week ban this month severely limited the abortion services that the state’s four clinics can provide.
If signed, as expected, the latest bill will expand a country with little or no legal access to abortion, forcing patients to travel to states such as Kansas, New Mexico and Colorado to terminate their pregnancies.
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Report by Gabriela Bortter; edited by Colleen Jenkins, Jonathan Oatis and David Gregorio
Our standards: Thomson Reuters’ principles of trust.
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