The Oklahoma Legislature on Thursday passed a bill that would effectively ban abortions by subjecting doctors who perform them to felony charges and revoking their medical licenses — the first legislation of its kind.
In a year in which states have tried to outlaw abortions at 20 weeks of pregnancy, to ban the main surgical method used in the second trimester and to shut down abortion clinics with onerous regulations, Oklahoma’s bill is the most far-reaching.
The measure, which passed the Republican-dominated Senate by a vote of 33 to 12, will be presented to Gov. Mary Fallin, a Republican, who will have five days to sign it, veto it or allow it to take effect without her signature.
If it becomes law, it is certain to face a quick challenge in state or federal court. And because the Supreme Court has consistently ruled that women have a right to obtain abortions until the fetus is viable outside the womb, legal experts say, it will soon be declared unconstitutional.
That has not deterred anti-abortion politicians in a state dominated by conservative Republicans. Some say they welcome the chance to make a strong statement and to engage the issues in court.
“Most people know I am for defending rights,” Senator Nathan Dahm, the author of the bill and a software developer from Broken Arrow, Okla., told The Oklahoman. “Those rights begin at conception.”
Mr. Dahm told reporters that he knew the measure would be challenged but expressed hope that the case would lead the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Ms. Fallin, who has signed several anti-abortion bills that were later blocked by the courts, will not comment on the new bill “until she and her staff have had a chance to review it,” Michael McNutt, her communications director, said in an email.
But some legislators called the measure an ill-considered diversion.
“I’m pro-life and a Roman Catholic, but I don’t think we should waste our time on legislation that someone will declare unconstitutional,” Senator Ervin Yen, an anesthesiologist from Oklahoma City, and one of a small number of Republicans to oppose the bill, said in an interview.
In an open letter on Thursday, the Center for Reproductive Rights, a legal group based in New York, urged Ms. Fallin to veto what it said was a “blatantly unconstitutional measure.”
Noting that it has sued Oklahoma eight times in the last six years, blocking lesser restrictions like the state’s effort to ban the second-trimester surgical method, the center said that “this bill will almost certainly lead to expensive court challenges that the State of Oklahoma simply cannot defend in light of longstanding Supreme Court precedent.”
The bill would strip doctors who perform abortions of their medical licenses unless the procedure was necessary to save a woman’s life. The felony provision does not include that exception.
Currently, only two clinics in Oklahoma, one in Norman and one in Tulsa, provide abortions. A third, owned by Trust Women, a foundation based in Wichita, Kan., is under construction and is to open next month. Julie Burkhart, Trust Women’s chief executive, expressed dismay at the bill and urged Ms. Fallin to veto it.
Oklahoma’s proposal to criminalize abortion may be the most stringent, but it is one of many new measures that continue in conservative states. This year, South Dakota joined 12 other states in banning abortions at 20 weeks of pregnancy, with a similar bill in South Carolina awaiting the signature of Gov. Nikki R. Haley.
Alabama, Mississippi and West Virginia have passed laws to ban the use of the second-trimester surgical technique even though courts in Oklahoma and elsewhere have previously overturned such laws.
Texas regulations that could force a majority of the state’s abortion clinics to close are the subject of a major Supreme Court case. The rules require that doctors have admitting privileges at local hospitals and that abortion clinics meet the stringent building and staffing standards of ambulatory surgery centers. The decision, expected in June, could have major effects on access to abortion in several other states.
But the Supreme Court, while it is debating how far states may go in regulating abortion, has given no sign that it will overturn the basic right of women to obtain the procedure, which is at stake in the new Oklahoma bill.
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