OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a invoice into legislation on Tuesday that makes it a prison to accomplish an abortion, punishable by way of as much as 10 years in jail, as a part of an competitive push in Republican-led states around the nation to reduce 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 mum. Abortion rights advocates say the invoice signed by way of the GOP governor is prone to face a prison problem.
Its passage comes because the conservative U.S. Preferrred Courtroom considers ratcheting again abortion rights which were in position for just about 50 years.
Underneath the invoice, somebody convicted of acting an abortion would resist 10 years in jail and a $100,000 tremendous. It does now not authorize legal fees towards 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 “most powerful pro-life law within the nation at the moment, which successfully gets rid of abortion in Oklahoma.”
Abortion rights advocates say the invoice is obviously unconstitutional.
“It hasn’t ever been extra glaring that politicians are the usage of tips and video games to move those damaging rules,” Dr. Ghazaleh Moayedi, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Texas and Oklahoma and a board member at Physicians for Reproductive Well being, mentioned in a remark. “Oklahoma legislators are seeking to ban abortion from both sides and simply seeing which of those bad, shameful expenses they are able to get their governor to signal.”
Identical anti-abortion expenses licensed by way of the Oklahoma Legislature and in different conservative states in recent times had been stopped by way of the courts as unconstitutional, however anti-abortion lawmakers had been buoyed by way of the U.S. Preferrred Courtroom’s resolution to permit new Texas abortion restrictions to stay in position.
The brand new Texas legislation, essentially the most restrictive anti-abortion legislation within the U.S. in a long time, leaves enforcement as much as personal voters, who’re entitled to assemble what critics name a “bounty” of $10,000 if they create a a hit lawsuit towards a supplier or somebody who is helping a affected person download an abortion.
A number of states, together with Oklahoma, are pursuing identical law this yr.
