Oklahoma Passes Bill That Makes Performing an Abortion a Felony, Punishable by 10 Years in Prison

WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 01: (L-R) Alana Edmondson, Lila Bonow, Amelia Bonow, Aiyana Knauer celebrate after takiong abortion pills while demonstrating in front of the U.S. Supreme Court as the justices hear hear arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, a case about a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks, on December 01, 2021 in Washington, DC. With the addition of conservative justices to the court by former President Donald Trump, experts believe this could be the most important abortion case in decades and could undermine or overturn Roe v. Wade. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Oklahoma’s GOP-controlled legislature passed a draconian bill, S.B. 612, on Tuesday that makes it a felony to perform an abortion “except to save the life of a pregnant woman in a medical emergency.” The state’s pro-life Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, has promised to sign the legislation. Once it takes effect on August 26th, performing an abortion can result in ten years in prison and a $100,000 fine.

“The penalties are for the doctor, not for the woman,” Rep. Jim Olsen, who sponsored the bill, said.

Oklahoma’s near-total ban is part and parcel of a GOP push to curb – or eliminate – abortions in states across the country. Many new anti-abortion laws are plainly unconstitutional under existing Supreme Court precedent, which permits abortions until roughly the 22nd week of pregnancy. But the Court’s new conservative majority seems poised to greatly curb reproductive rights later this term when it rules on a controversial new Mississippi law that prohibits the procedure after 15 weeks.

Texas established strict limits on abortions last year, forcing many women in the state to travel to Oklahoma to receive reproductive healthcare. According to a recent study from the University of Texas at Austin, Oklahoma received about 45% of abortion-seekers traveling from Texas, the most of any state. Now that option is fading away.

The New York Times reports:

“If allowed to take effect, S.B. 612 would be devastating for both Oklahomans and Texans who continue to seek care in Oklahoma,” a coalition of abortion rights groups, including the A.C.L.U. of Oklahoma and Oklahoma Call for Reproductive Justice, said in a statement.
“Nearly half of the patients Oklahoma providers are currently seeing are medical refugees from Texas,” the groups said. “Now, Oklahomans could face a future where they would have no place left in their state to go to seek this basic health care.”

The Washington Post provides additional context:

In past years, three states — Alabama, Arkansas and Oklahoma — have passed near total abortion bans, all of which have been blocked by the courts because of the challenge they pose to Roe v. Wade. But this latest bill, passed within months or perhaps weeks of the Supreme Court’s action in the Mississippi case, could stand a greater chance of taking effect.
In oral arguments last year, conservative justices, who hold a 6-to-3 majority on the court, seemed open to overturning Roe v. Wade and 50 years of jurisprudence that guarantees a fundamental right to abortion.
The Supreme Court has already passed on three opportunities to block a Texas law that bans abortions in the state around six weeks of pregnancy and sets up enforcement via private individuals, rather than state officials, underscoring the court’s willingness to allow at least one state to enforce a restrictive law.

Pro-choice advocates are particularly vexed by the bill that passed the Oklahoma House on Tuesday – it passed the Oklahoma Senate last year – because its passage was unexpected. Vox explains:

The bill’s passage came as a surprise to abortion rights advocates in the state, who saw it as a political statement in response to their “Bans Off Oklahoma” rally at the state capitol on Tuesday. The measure was put on the agenda on Tuesday, fairly late in the legislative session, and passed that same day with little time for debate.
“This bill kind of came out of nowhere,” said Tamya Cox-Touré, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma. “This was a direct reflection of the fact that 350 people gathered to demand that abortion access is protected. And this was their retaliation.”

“According to the Guttmacher Institute, an organization focused on reproductive health rights, 71 proposed bills have been introduced in 28 states this year to outlaw or ban abortions,” notes NBC News.