This state of the south of the United States has been welcoming thousands of Texanes looking for an abortion for a few months after the passage of a similar text in the neighboring state.
Le Monde
The restriction on abortion continues to harden in certain American states. The Bicameral Parliament of Oklahoma (state of the southern United States) approved, Thursday, April 28, a law prohibiting the voluntary pregnancy interruption (abortion) after six weeks of pregnancy. This conservative state has been welcoming thousands of Texanes for a few months, seeking to abort, after the adoptions of a similar text in this neighboring state.
The text voted by the lower chamber of the Oklahoma legislative body provides for medical exceptions for authorization to end a pregnancy, but no derogation is provided in the event of rape or incest. He now falls to the Republican Governor to sign him and bring him into force.
A few hours after the first vote in the lower chamber, the Senate of Oklahoma approved another text prohibiting this time any abortion, regardless of the progress of pregnancy , but comprising exceptions in the event of medical emergencies, rape or incest. This text will now make the parliamentary shuttle to the lower room.
access to limited abortion in several conservative states
The 1 er September 2021, one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the United States came into force in the republican state of Texas, prohibiting any abortion from the moment when The beating of the heart of the fetus is perceptible to ultrasound, or about four weeks after fertilization.
With 30 million inhabitants, Texas is the second most populous state in the country, and this law led patients to turn to clinics, quickly overwhelmed, other states, including Oklahoma, the binding, for lack of space, to delay their abortion inexorably.
Besides Texas and Oklahoma, other conservative states such as Florida, or Mississippi have also voted texts limiting access to abortion. The legality of the text voted in this last state is under examination at the Supreme Court of the United States, with a decision expected in June.
During the examination of the file, the conservative judges who compose it, now in the majority (six out of nine), suggested that they could take advantage of it to reduce, even cancel, the right to abortion. Recognized in the historical judgment “Roe v. Wade” of 1973, this right is today applicable as long as the fetus is not viable, or towards the end of the second quarter.