Oklahoma passes one of the most restrictive laws in the United States

by time news

The Republican governor of Oklahoma, a state located in the southern United States, said on Tuesday May 3 that he had signed a law banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.

“I want Oklahoma to be the most pro-life state in the country,” justified the governor, Kevin Stitt, by promulgating the text voted by the local Parliament last Thursday. “I represent all of Oklahoma’s 4 million people who overwhelmingly want to protect unborn children,” he explained on Twitter.

→ REREAD. In the United States, incessant battles around abortion

The text provides for medical exceptions for access to abortion, but not in the event of rape or incest. This conservative state had been welcoming thousands of Texan women seeking abortions for several months, after the passage of a similar text in this neighboring state.

Returning to the Roe vs. Wade case law

This announcement comes the day after revelations by the Politico media about a potential Supreme Court decision overturning the Roe vs. Wade case law, which had sanctified the right to abortion throughout the country for nearly fifty years.

The leak of this document, the authenticity of which was confirmed by the Court (which recalled that it was not the final decision), had the effect of a bomb in Washington. She pushed the Democratic President, Joe Biden, to recall his support for the right to abortion.

→ EXPLANATION. Right to abortion in the United States: what you need to know about the Supreme Court project

If the highest court were to overturn the Roe vs. Wade decision, the country would return to the situation before 1973, when each state was free to prohibit or authorize abortion.

26 states ready to ban abortion

Already in September 2021, Texas had put in place a law prohibiting any abortion from the moment when a heartbeat of the embryo is perceptible on ultrasound, i.e. around four weeks after fertilization. The legality of similar texts in other states has been studied by the Supreme Court for several months.

→ DEBATE. Why is the right to abortion questioned in the United States?

In all, 26 conservative states, mostly in the center and south of the country such as Wyoming, Tennessee or South Carolina, are ready to ban abortion altogether in the event of a green light from the Supreme Court. .

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