Just when you might be thinking the forced-birthers couldn’t come up with yet another way to get themselves into court over an abortion restriction, some yahoos will prove you wrong.
This time, they made their move in Oklahoma, where the legislature has already passed and the governor has signed some of the worst abortion-related laws in the nation, including a number that have been successfully challenged in court.
The culprit this time is the state senate, which passed SB 1552. It provides for suspending the license of any physician who performs an abortion. The bill passed 40-7, with three Democrats voting for it. One Republican joined the six Democrats who opposed it. There would have been another Republican vote, from the only medical doctor in the chamber, but he mistakenly voted for it. The bill has been sent to the Oklahoma House of Representatives, where it is expected to pass.
The only exception allowed is for an abortion performed to save a woman’s life or preserve her health:
Senate Minority Leader John Sparks, D-Norman, was successful in attaching an amendment requiring legal costs to be calculated for defending the measure should there be a court challenge. [...]
Sparks said the law is unconstitutional in numerous ways, including being an ex post facto law.
“This bill will be reversed,” he said.
Since 2011, the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights has filed eight legal challenges to anti-abortion laws passed by the Oklahoma legislature. The courts have overturned several of them, and other challenges are still working their way through the system.
Just last month, for instance, a state court refused to stop implementation of a 2014 law that requires abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. The bill, like similar ones in other states, is part of the forced-birthers efforts to shutter as many clinics as they can without making a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court case that legalized abortion nationwide. CRR argues that the law would force one of the state’s two remaining abortion clinics to close its doors.
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments earlier this month in a challenge to a Texas law, one of whose provisions requires hospital admitting privileges for doctors who perform abortions at clinics. The outcome of that case could have a major impact on women’s access to abortion. It will either make it easier to pass laws that make it harder, more expensive, and more time-consuming to terminate pregnancies, or give foes of the restrictions an advantage in the ongoing fight over the procedure.