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The Oklahoma House passed the Oklahoma Heartbeat Act 68-12 on Thursday, which will ban all abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy.
Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, who said earlier this month that “he wants to outlaw abortion in the state of Oklahoma,” is expected to sign the bill in the coming days.
The bill is modeled after a law passed in Texas last year that bans abortions once cardiac activity can be detected in the fetus, which is around six weeks, and allows private citizens to sue anyone who “aids and abets” an abortion.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt speaks after signing into law a bill making it a felony to perform an abortion, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, Tuesday, April 12, 2022, in Oklahoma City.
(AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
The U.S. 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed challenges to Texas’s law this week and the U.S. Supreme Court has so far declined to intervene.
OKLAHOMA HOUSE PASSES NEAR-TOTAL ABORTION BAN
It’s the second anti-abortion bill to clear the Oklahoma legislature after Gov. Stitt signed a bill earlier this month that makes performing an abortion a felony punishable by up to a decade in prison.
“I promised Oklahomans that I would sign every pro-life bill that hits my desk, and that’s what we’re doing here today,” Stitt said at the time.
Abortion rights advocates gather outside the Oklahoma Capitol on Tuesday, April 5, 2022, in Oklahoma City, to protest several anti-abortion bills being considered by the GOP-led Legislature.
(AP Photo/Sean Murphy)
The bill passed in early April won’t go into effect until this summer and could be struck down by a legal challenge, but the 6-week ban passed Thursday has an “emergency” provision that will allow it to go into effect immediately.
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Planned Parenthood said Thursday that they “are going to court to stop this ban.”
“We have been in the middle of a crisis for the last seven months — as Texans have been forced to leave their home states for care — and now Oklahomans may have to do the same,” Emily Wales, the interim president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes, said in a statement earlier this month. “It’s unconscionable.”
Idaho passed its own Texas-style abortion ban in March, but the state Supreme Court temporarily blocked it before it went into effect.
Pro-life protesters stand near the gate of the Texas state capitol at a protest outside the Texas state capitol on May 29, 2021 in Austin, Texas.
(Sergio Flores/Getty Images)
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The law in Texas led to a dramatic decrease in abortions across the state last year and an increase in Texans going across the border to Oklahoma.
Before the Texas law took effect, about 40 women from Texas had abortions in Oklahoma each year, but that number rose to more 200 a month in September and October, according to the Oklahoma State Department of Health.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
