Oklahoma state House approves bill to make abortion illegal

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 mentioned he’d signal any anti-abortion invoice that involves his desk.

The invoice is certainly one of 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 were 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 save lots of the lifetime of the mom, mentioned GOP state Rep. Jim Olsen, of Roland, who sponsored the invoice. Underneath 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 mentioned.

Comparable anti-abortion payments permitted by the Oklahoma Legislature in recent times have been stopped by the courts as unconstitutional.

The invoice’s passage got here on the identical day as greater than 100 individuals attended a “Bans Off Oklahoma” rally outdoors the Capitol in help of abortion rights.

“These legislators have continued their relentless assaults on our freedoms,” mentioned Emily Wales, interim president and CEO of Deliberate Parenthood Nice Plains Votes. “These restrictions should not about bettering the protection of the work that we do. They’re about shaming and stigmatizing individuals who want and deserve abortion entry.”

Wales mentioned Deliberate Parenthood’s abortion clinic in Oklahoma has seen an 800% enhance within the variety of ladies from Texas after that state handed probably the most restrictive anti-abortion legislation within the U.S. in a long time.

The Texas legislation that took impact final 12 months bans abortion as soon as cardiac exercise is detected, often round six weeks of being pregnant, with out exceptions in circumstances of rape or incest.

Additionally Tuesday, the Oklahoma Home adopted a decision to acknowledge lives misplaced attributable to 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 choice in Roe v. Wade.