Republican Governor Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma was denounced Tuesday for signing into law one of the most extreme forced-pregnancy bills in the United States, a law pro-choice advocates argue is blatantly unconstitutional and must be challenged.
Stitt signed S.B. 612, which targets healthcare professionals by making it illegal for them to provide abortions at any stage of pregnancy with only a narrow exception for pregnant patients who are at risk of death unless their pregnancies are terminated.
Under the law, which is scheduled to go into effect this summer, healthcare workers who provide abortion care could be charged with a felony and face as much as 10 years in prison as well as a $100,000 fine.
Stitt and other Republicans have been "emboldened" by the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to stop Texas from enacting its own forced-pregnancy law, known as S.B. 8, last year, said Nancy Northrup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR).
"Oklahoma's total abortion ban is blatantly unconstitutional and will wreak havoc on the lives of people seeking abortion care within and outside the state," Northrup said. "We've sued the state of Oklahoma ten times in the last decade to protect abortion access and we will challenge this law as well to stop this travesty from ever taking effect."
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