OKLAHOMA CITY, April 26, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – Oklahoma’s Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt signed into law Monday three new measures “protecting the lives of the unborn” from effectively all abortions, though at least two of the laws are likely to be put on hold by the courts before taking effect.
KOKH reports that the first law makes it a homicide to abort any baby with a detectable heartbeat. The second law makes it “unprofessional conduct” to abort a baby for any reason other than to save a mother’s life, regardless of whether a heartbeat can be detected. The third law forbids anyone other than board-certified OB/GYNs from performing abortions. All three are slated to take effect November 1.
Direct abortion bans such as the first two laws, which take effect well before the Supreme Court’s “fetal viability” threshold, are generally not expected to ban abortion in the near term, because they are consistently enjoined by lawsuits from the abortion industry.
Instead, states typically enact them in hopes of provoking a legal battle that would hopefully reach the nation’s highest court and instigate a review of Roe v. Wade, thereby potentially overturning decades of pro-abortion legal precedent and freeing the states to set their own abortion laws. Such a case would present the biggest test yet of former President Donald Trump’s three appointees to the Supreme Court, and whether they will help comprise the majority needed to finally overturn Roe.
The third law, meanwhile, is meant to prevent situations such as that of the infamous Philadelphia abortionist and convicted killer Kermit Gosnell, who delegated parts of the abortion process such as administering anesthesia to non-physician employees, one of whom was only 15 years old. It may face lawsuits as well, but stands a better chance of taking effect as the Supreme Court has upheld a wide range of abortion regulations enacted in the name of a mother’s safety.
In recent years there has been a push by the abortion lobby for non-doctors to be allowed to commit abortions.
Oklahoma joins Georgia, Missouri, Louisiana, Tennessee, Ohio, Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Dakota, and South Dakota in enacting laws to limit abortions as early as a fetal heartbeat can be detected.