Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signing SB 612 into law on April 12.Photo: Sue Ogrocki/AP/Shutterstock
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt has officially signed the state’srestrictive abortion billinto law, banning abortions in almost all cases and making performing them a felony.
“I promised Oklahomans that I would sign every pro-life bill that hits my desk and that’s what we’re doing today,” Stitt, a Republican,said at thesigning ceremonyTuesday.
“As governor, I represent all 4 million Oklahomans, and they overwhelmingly support protecting life in the state of Oklahoma,” he continued. “We want Oklahoma to be the most pro-life state in the country. We want to outlaw abortion in the state of Oklahoma.”
Stitt said that he and his fellow Republicans expect that the motion will be “challenged immediately,” but won’t give up their fight.
Emily Wales, interim CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes, speaks to abortion rights advocates outside the Oklahoma Capitol.Sean Murphy/AP/Shutterstock
Planned Parenthood, which currentlyruns two of the four remaining clinics offering abortionsin Oklahoma, have said thatthey plan to fight the law.
Meanwhile, critics are crying that the bill is unconstitutional
“It has never been more obvious that politicians are using tricks and games to pass these harmful laws,” said Dr. Ghazaleh Moayedi, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Texas and Oklahoma, who also serves as a board member at Physicians for Reproductive Health, per theAssociated Press. “Oklahoma legislators are trying to ban abortion from all sides and merely seeing which of these dangerous, shameful bills they can get their governor to sign.”
Rep. Jim Olsen, a Republican who wrote the bill, said that their intention is that the bill would coincide with the Supreme Court’s decision on Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
Oklahoma’s expectation, along with that ofmultiple other Republican-led states that have enacted restrictive abortion laws in the last year, is that thenewly-conservative Supreme Court will overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade casethat established the right to abortion with the Mississippi decision, and therefore make their legislation legal.
source: people.com
