FILE - Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt
(Picture: AP)Oklahoma’s governor Kevin Stitt signed the country’s strictest abortion ban on Wednesday, making the state the first in the US to effectively end availability of the procedure.
The bill bans abortions from the moment of conception and allows private citizens to sue those who help women terminate their pregnancies.
“I promised Oklahomans that as governor I would sign every piece of pro-life legislation that came across my desk and I am proud to keep that promise today,” Mr Stitt said in a statement.
The Republican-backed legislation, which takes effect immediately, makes exceptions only in cases of medical emergency, rape or incest.
Oklahoma is among the country’s Republican-led states rushing to pass anti-abortion laws this year, after a leak suggested the Supreme Court could overturn Roe v Wade, the case which established a constitutional right to abortion.
The Center for Reproductive Rights, an advocacy group based in New York, said it would “imminently file a challenge to the ban and seek to block it in court”.
”Oklahoma is now the only state in the United States to successfully outlaw abortion while Roe v. Wade still stands," the center said in a statement.
Oklahoma’s four abortion clinics have already stopped providing abortion services in anticipation of the ban.
Earlier this month, Oklahoma enacted another bill that banned abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, as opposed to from conception.
The ability to sue abortion providers was taken from Texas legislation that took effect in September and stopped clinics from performing nearly all abortions in that state.
Before the passage of the Oklahoma laws, the state had become a destination for Texas women seeking abortions after six weeks.
But the new restrictions have now expanded a region of the country where there is little to no legal abortion access, forcing patients to travel to states such as Kansas, New Mexico and Colorado to end their pregnancies.
