Oklahoma's new abortion law could create a domino effect across the region

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Oklahoma's new abortion¹ law could create a domino effect across the region

Transcript²

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt has signed a bill creating the nation's most stringent³ abortion restriction⁴. It makes performing the procedure a felony, punishable by up to a decade in prison.

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Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt has signed into law the nation's toughest abortion restrictions⁵. Performing an abortion is now a felony, punishable by up to a decade in prison. As reporter Catherine Sweeney explains, the new law could also create a domino effect throughout the region.

CATHERINE SWEENEY, BYLINE⁶: Stitt signed that bill amid fanfare⁷ and reiterated⁸ his pledge to sign each of the several abortion restriction bills expected to cross his desk.

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KEVIN STITT: We want Oklahoma to be the most pro-life state in the country. We want to outlaw⁹ abortion in the state of Oklahoma.

SWEENEY: Without legal challenges, it would go into effect 90 days after the legislative¹⁰ session ends in May. That would be after the U.S. Supreme¹¹ Court is expected to weigh in on Mississippi's law, which bans most abortions¹² after about 15 weeks of pregnancy¹³. If that law stands, the court would be effectively overturning Roe¹⁴ v. Wade¹⁵ and the protections that case guarantees. Oklahoma has seen a surge in abortion demand since last year, when Texas passed a law that banned the vast majority of abortions in the state.

REBECCA TONG: As soon as SB 8 went into place, we began to see ten times as many Texas patients than the previous month.

SWEENEY: That's Rebecca Tong, the co-executive director of Trust Women, an organization that provides abortion services. She said there's a wide discrepancy¹⁶ between the number of people who need those services and the ones who actually get them.

TONG: Our phones are ringing all day long - multiple phone lines. I mean, many people who try to reach us never even get through.

SWEENEY: It's not easy to get an abortion in Oklahoma. There aren't enough providers in the sprawling¹⁷ state. Tong says this disproportionately affects people on the fringes with low access to health care. Their average patient is already a parent, has no health insurance and has to plan extensively for the visit. She says outlawing¹⁸ the procedure in Oklahoma would mean even more strain, but mostly on low-income people. Wealthier patients...

TONG: They'll be able to hop¹⁹ on a flight and go to California or, God forbid, in the future, hop on a flight and have to go to Canada, right?

SWEENEY: She and other abortion rights advocates noted²⁰ that the bills are nothing new in Oklahoma. But they're preparing for a world where court challenges won't block them.

TAMYA COX-TOURE: We've always had maps up of what access could look like if Roe were to fall.

SWEENEY: That's Tamya Cox-Toure, executive director of ACLU, Oklahoma and a longtime abortion rights advocate. She says there's an old saying.

COX-TOURE: How goes Oklahoma goes the rest of the South. And we're seeing that.

SWEENEY: The dominoes started with Texas and could continue later this year if the U.S. Supreme Court upholds restrictions passed in Mississippi.

For NPR News, I'm Catherine Sweeney in Oklahoma City.