{"id":34735,"date":"2022-04-06T19:14:03","date_gmt":"2022-04-07T00:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=34735"},"modified":"2022-04-06T19:17:49","modified_gmt":"2022-04-07T00:17:49","slug":"oklahoma-abortion-laws-would-send-providers-to-prison-for-up-to-a-decade-and-worsen-access-for-the-region","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2022\/04\/06\/oklahoma-abortion-laws-would-send-providers-to-prison-for-up-to-a-decade-and-worsen-access-for-the-region\/","title":{"rendered":"Oklahoma abortion laws would send providers to prison for up to a decade and worsen access for the region"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 100%; height: 200px; margin-bottom: 20px; border-radius: 6px; overflow: hidden;\"><iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 200px;\" src=\"https:\/\/player.captivate.fm\/episode\/7d7d78bc-4e46-41eb-8abf-572f6c795277\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless=\"\"><\/iframe><\/div><p>&nbsp;<\/p><p><em>StateImpact&#8217;s Robby Korth contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p><p>Oklahoma lawmakers are in a mad dash to eradicate abortion in Oklahoma, passing a slew of bills to restrict \u2014 and in some cases, even criminalize \u2014 the procedure. These laws now stand a better chance of going into effect, and that if they do, will have a major impact on the region, not just Oklahoma.<\/p><p><strong>\u201cBe vigilant\u2026 or panic\u201d<\/strong><\/p><p>Abortion restriction bills aren\u2019t new in Oklahoma. Lawmakers are guaranteed to run them every year, especially with an election around the corner. But abortion rights supporters say this year is not business as usual.<\/p><p>\u201cBe vigilant. I think that&#8217;s very fair&#8230; or panic. Whatever people need to do, I understand,\u201d Tamya Cox-Tour\u00e9, the executive director of ACLU Oklahoma and a long-time abortion access advocate, said. \u201cIt&#8217;s super tough right now.\u201d<\/p><p>She was one of many organizers who worked on the Bans Off Our State rally on Tuesday.<\/p><p>Demonstrators turned out to protest several abortion restirctions that were already in the works. As the rally continued outside, House Republicans voted to pass the most strenuous abortion ban yet \u2014 and as a surprise.<\/p><p>Senate Bill 612 would criminalize abortions; medical providers who amdinister them would face up to a decade in prison. The bill\u2019s passage was abrupt. It made it through the Senate last year, but stalled out. It only took a House floor vote this year to send it to Governor Kevin Stitt\u2019s desk.<\/p><p>The House advanced a separate bill on Wednesday. Public Health Committee members approved Senate Bill 1503, a copycat of Texas&#8217; law, which has survived legal challenges and gone into effect. It banned the vast majority of abortions by making abortion a civil issue, so private citizens enforce it with lawsuits.<\/p><p><strong>A changing judicial landscape<\/strong><\/p><p>That law\u2019s success creates a very different situation for abortion bills in Oklahoma. StateImpact talked with Iman Alsaden, the medical director for Planned Parenthood Great Plains, which serves Oklahoma and several surrounding states.<\/p><p>\u201cSo this year is different because, first of all, the Supreme Court has refused to acknowledge that this type of healthcare is a constitutional right,\u201d Alsaden said.<\/p><p>Since the U.S. Supreme Court made its decision on Roe v. Wade in 1973, abortion was considered a constitutional right, but that position seems to be reversing, as the court upholds laws such as the one in Texas. Abortion access supporters say if the court upholds Mississippi\u2019s latest abortion restriction laws later this year, it would be a full reversal of Roe.<\/p><p>It\u2019s too soon to tell what effectively overturning Roe will mean for Oklahoma. Cox-Toure said the abortion bills going through the Legislature now conflict with one another.<\/p><p>\u201cAnd I just don&#8217;t know how we reconcile that until they get to kind of the final process,\u201d Cox-Tour\u00e9 said.<\/p><p>Additionally, the state has a handful of so-called trigger laws \u2014 abortion restrictions that exist on the books now but will go into effect automatically if Roe is overturned.<\/p><p>\u201cWorst case scenario, Roe is overturned, these bills uphold any legal challenges,\u201d Cox-Tour\u00e9 said. \u201cOklahomans will have to travel out of the state to get the care that they need.\u201d<\/p><p><strong>The wider impact of Oklahoma\u2019s ban<\/strong><\/p><p>Oklahoma losing its ability to provide abortions wouldn\u2019t just affect people here.<\/p><p>Before Texas\u2019 restrictions took effect, The Oklahoman reported in-state abortion providers served a few dozen Texans a month on average. After the restriction, that number surged into the hundreds. Alsaden said without Oklahoma, those patients would be forced to travel even farther.<\/p><p>And, that barrier could continue moving north. As of now, Kansas\u2019 state constitution contains protections for abortion access.<\/p><p>\u201cThere\u2019s a ballot initiative in August of 2022 to remove that state constitutional protection for abortion,\u201d Alsaden said. \u201cAnd then you\u2019re looking at Kansas getting knocked off the post-Roe map, as we\u2019re calling it.\u201d<\/p><p>Abortion access supporters say those are the prosepctive concerns, but there is one major issue as of today:<\/p><p>\u201cThe biggest concern is that when people hear that these bills are making their way through the Legislature, they automatically think that they can&#8217;t access an abortion,\u201d Cox-Tour\u00e9 said.<\/p><p>Regardless of which bills pass and whether they go into law, abortion is legal in Oklahoma at least until mid-summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;StateImpact&#8217;s Robby Korth contributed to this report.Oklahoma lawmakers are in a mad dash to eradicate abortion in Oklahoma, passing a slew of bills to restrict \u2014 and in some cases, even criminalize \u2014 the procedure. These laws now stand a better chance of going into effect, and that if they do, will have a major [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":213,"featured_media":34736,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34735"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34735"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34739,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34735\/revisions\/34739"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}