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The Oklahoma Legislature gave final approval Thursday to a bill that bans almost all abortions after fertilization, which would make it the strictest pregnancy termination law in the country.
The bill is based on a previous one that went into effect in Texas in September, which has relied on civil rather than criminal enforcement to resolve court challenges.
But it goes beyond the Texas law, which prohibits abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, according to the New York Times.
Breaking News: Oklahoma lawmakers passed a bill banning nearly all abortions starting at fertilization , which would make it the nation’s strictest abortion law. https://t.co/XcR8XudXyp
—The New York Times (@nytimes) May 15, 2022
The bill subjects abortion providers and anyone who “helps or incites” to an abortion to civil lawsuits by private individuals. It would go into effect immediately after the signature of Governor Kevin Stitt, a Republican who pledged to make his state the most anti-abortion state in the nation.
The Republican-led Legislature has helped him, passing ban after ban in an attempt to prevent abortion altogether.
Together, they have put Oklahoma at the head of a group of Republican-led states rushing to pass laws restricting or banning abortion in anticipation that the Supreme Court will soon strike down Roe v. Wade, who established the constitutional right to abortion.
Un leaked memorandum written by Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., along with oral arguments in the case in question coupled with a law of Mississippi, which prohibits the procedure after 10 weeks of pregnancy, indicated that the court was prepared to do so.
If signed by the Governor, the Oklahoma bill would eliminate another option for Texas women who can cross the state line to seek procedures and seeks to punish even those from out of state who help Oklahoma women get abortions.
Oklahoma already has a triggering ban that would immediately ban abortion if the court overturns Roe, as well as an abortion ban that has remained on the books since before the Roe decision in 1200.
Two weeks ago, just after the memo was leaked, Governor Stitt signed a six-week ban closely modeled on Texas legislation.
The previous month I had signed one that will come into force at the end of August, completely banning abortion except to save the life of the mother.
The bill approved on Thursday attempts to combine two approaches: ban abortion altogether and use civil enforcement.
Both the US Supreme Court and the Texas Supreme Court refused to block the law of this state, because it depends on the application of the law by civilians and not the state.
The Oklahoma bill would allow lawsuits against anyone who performs or induces an abortion, as well as against those who knowingly “help or i encourage” a woman to undergo an abortion.
That includes those who help pay for them, which could involve people across the country who have been donating to charities that help women in restrictive states get abortions elsewhere.
Those who sue successfully will receive prizes of at least $05,05 dollars and compensatory damages, including “emotional distress”. The bill exempts women who abort from lawsuits, which has been a red line that legislatures have been unwilling to cross. It does not apply to abortions necessary to “save the life of the unborn child” or the life of the mother “in a medical emergency.”
Also allows abortion if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, as long as when that crime has been reported to law enforcement.
Defines an unborn child as “a human fetus or embryo at any stage of gestation from fertilization to birth”.
Anti-abortion groups, who believe that abortion is murder, have tried unsuccessfully since the decision de Roe pass federal or state laws that define life as beginning at fertilization.
Abortion rights advocates have argued that this would effectively ban birth control methods that prevent implantation, such as an intrauterine device, but the bill of Oklahoma specifies that does not apply to contraception.
When asked on “Fox News Sunday” how she would help women who carried their pregnancies despite financial or other challenges that would make it difficult to raise a child, Stitt blamed the “social democratic left” for trying to abort poor children.
“We believe that God has a special plan for every life and every child, and we want everyone to have the same opportunities in Oklahoma, and aborting a child is not the right answer,” he said.
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