Skip to content
Center for Reproductive Rights
Center for Reproductive Rights

Primary Menu

  • About
    • Overview
    • Center Leadership & Staff
    • Pro Bono Program
    • Creative Council
    • Annual Reports
    • Contact Us
    • Careers
    • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
  • Work
    • Overview
    • Litigation
    • Legal Policy and Advocacy
    • Resources & Research
    • Recent Case Highlights
    • Landmark Cases
    • World’s Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
  • Issues
    • Overview
    • Abortion
    • Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
    • Assisted Reproduction
    • Contraception
    • Humanitarian Settings
    • Maternal Health
    • COVID-19
  • Regions
    • Overview
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Europe
    • Latin America and the Caribbean
    • United States
    • Global Advocacy
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Center in the Spotlight
    • Events
    • Press Releases
    • Press Room
    • Newsletters
  • Resources
    • Resources & Research
    • World Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
  • Act
    • Overview
    • Give
    • Act
    • Learn
  • Donate
    • Make a Gift Now
    • Be a Champion
    • Join the Advocates Council
    • Become a Major Donor
    • Give Through Your Donor-Advised Fund
    • Make a Gift In Honor
    • Attend an Event
    • Leave a Legacy
    • More Ways to Give
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
Donate
icon-hamburger icon-magnifying-glass Donate
icon-magnifying-glass-teal

Oklahoma House Committee Passes Extreme Total Ban on Abortion

Center for Reproductive Rights - Center for Reproductive Rights - search logo
search Close Close icon
Center for Reproductive Rights -
Menu Close Menu Close icon
Donate

Primary Menu

  • About
    • Overview
    • Center Leadership & Staff
    • Pro Bono Program
    • Creative Council
    • Annual Reports
    • Contact Us
    • Careers
    • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
  • Work
    • Overview
    • Litigation
    • Legal Policy and Advocacy
    • Resources & Research
    • Recent Case Highlights
    • Landmark Cases
    • World’s Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
  • Issues
    • Overview
    • Abortion
    • Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
    • Assisted Reproduction
    • Contraception
    • Humanitarian Settings
    • Maternal Health
    • COVID-19
  • Regions
    • Overview
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Europe
    • Latin America and the Caribbean
    • United States
    • Global Advocacy
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Center in the Spotlight
    • Events
    • Press Releases
    • Press Room
    • Newsletters
  • Resources
    • Resources & Research
    • World Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
  • Act
    • Overview
    • Give
    • Act
    • Learn
  • Donate
    • Make a Gift Now
    • Be a Champion
    • Join the Advocates Council
    • Become a Major Donor
    • Give Through Your Donor-Advised Fund
    • Make a Gift In Honor
    • Attend an Event
    • Leave a Legacy
    • More Ways to Give
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn

Related Content

Issues:

Abortion

Regions:

United States

Work:

Engaging Policymakers, In the States (USA)

Type:

News, Press Releases

Follow the Center

Donate Now

Join Now

03.02.2022

Engaging Policymakers Abortion United States News

Oklahoma House Committee Passes Extreme Total Ban on Abortion

Megan Diamondstein
The bill now moves to the House floor, where it is expected to pass before heading to the Senate

Share this Story

  • facebook
  • Twitter
  • linkedin
  • Email id

03.02.2022 — (PRESS RELEASE) Today, Republicans in the Oklahoma House of Representatives Committee on Public Health swiftly pushed through a total abortion ban that would eliminate access to care for more than one million people across the state and many more in the surrounding region. Since Texas’ six-week ban on abortion (S.B. 8) took effect six months ago, some Oklahoma abortion providers have seen a nearly 2500% increase in patients from Texas. If this ban were to take effect, it would force pregnant people who have the means to do so to travel even further in a region where abortion access is already scarce.  

OK H.B. 4327, authored by Representative Wendi Stearman, would copy the civilian bounty-hunting enforcement scheme of Texas’ S.B. 8, which allows anyone to sue an abortion provider for up to $10,000 if they violate the law. H.B. 4327 goes even further than S.B. 8 by prohibiting any physician in the state from providing any abortions no matter how early into pregnancy, with virtually no exceptions.

While abortion remains legal in Oklahoma for now, this vote comes one week after the Senate Health and Human Services Committee passed five other anti-abortion bills — including six-week and 30-day abortion bans — in less than an hour. 

Statement from Tamya Cox-Touré, Executive Director for the ACLU of Oklahoma 

“Abortion is essential health care, and the ACLU of Oklahoma will never stop fighting for the right of all Oklahomans to make their own decisions about their bodies and their future — including the decision to have an abortion. But Oklahoma politicians are doubling down on their efforts to control people’s reproductive freedom and ban abortion this session. 

“Laws like HB 4327, lead to real life consequences, that force people to carry pregnancies against their will or, if they have the means, flee the state to get an abortion. Make no mistake, the burden of pushing abortion out of reach falls hardest on people who already face systemic racism and discrimination in this country, including Black and Brown communities, people with disabilities, and 2SLGBTQ+ people, as well as people who are young, have low-incomes, or live in rural areas. Fighting these laws is essential to the fight for racial, economic, and gender justice.”

Statement Elisabeth Smith, Director of State Policy and Advocacy for the Center for Reproductive Rights: 

“This bill poses an imminent and grave threat to abortion access in Oklahoma and across the region. Abortion rights activists have been warning of this nightmare for months: these bounty hunter laws will have a domino effect across the country, as more and more states ban abortion nearly entirely while Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land. In the six months since Texas Senate Bill 8 took effect, scores of Texans have sought abortion care in Oklahoma. Where will all of these patients, as well as pregnant people in Oklahoma, go now?”

Statement from Emily Wales, Interim CEO and President, Planned Parenthood Great Plains: 

“There is only one goal with this bill, and the slate of bills being pushed by Oklahoma legislators this session: stop people from accessing abortion — by any means necessary. We know the devastating effects this ban will have because we have already seen an abortion access crisis unfold here in Oklahoma and across the region over the past six months. Every day since September 1, Texans have called our phones, sought care at our health centers, and asked us to do what their home state politicians refused: to recognize their right to make private medical decisions and access essential, constitutionally-protected care in their own communities. Oklahomans will be living the same nightmare if this ban takes effect. But we will not stop fighting for everyone to decide what is best for their bodies, their lives, and their futures.”

Statement from Rebecca Tong, Co-Executive Director, Trust Women

“Abortion bans do not reduce the need for abortion care: as we have seen for the last six months under Texas’ brutal SB 8 regime, abortion bans merely outsource abortion care to other states. Forcing people to travel for basic, essential healthcare they should be able to easily find in their own communities is cruel. Traveling for essential healthcare is not a solution that will result in healthy communities. Many pregnant people will not be able to travel and will be forced to carry pregnancies they do not want or cannot survive. 

“The reckless cruelty is the point. Our phones have not stopped ringing since SB 8 took effect in September. If these bills become law, the situation on the ground will only worsen. We will continue to fight for the rights of Oklahomans to have access to the compassionate abortion care they deserve.”

###

MEDIA CONTACT

PPGP: Anamarie Rebori Simmons, [email protected] 

ACLU of OK: Cassidy Fallik, [email protected], 913-748-1278

Trust Women: Zack Gingrich-Gaylord, [email protected], 316-737-1300

Center for Reproductive Rights: [email protected]

Tags: oklahoma

Sign up for email updates.

The most up-to-date news on reproductive rights, delivered straight to you.

Footer Menu

  • Careers
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact Us

Center for Reproductive Rights
© (1992-2022)

Use of this site signifies agreement with our disclaimer and privacy policy.

Center for Reproductive Rights
This site uses necessary, analytics and social media cookies to improve your experience and deliver targeted advertising. Click "Options" or click here to learn more and customize your cookie settings, otherwise please click "Accept" to proceed.
OPTIONSACCEPT
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
CookieDurationDescription
_ga2 yearsThis cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data and keep track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookies store information anonymously and assign a randomly generated number to identify unique visitors.
_gat_UA-6619340-11 minuteNo description
_gid1 dayThis cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to store information of how visitors use a website and helps in creating an analytics report of how the wbsite is doing. The data collected including the number visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages viisted in an anonymous form.
_parsely_session30 minutesThis cookie is used to track the behavior of a user within the current session.
HotJar: _hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress30 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjFirstSeen30 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjid1 yearThis cookie is set by Hotjar. This cookie is set when the customer first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the random user ID, unique to that site on the browser. This ensures that behavior in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID.
HotJar: _hjIncludedInPageviewSample2 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjIncludedInSessionSample2 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjTLDTestsessionNo description
SSCVER1 year 24 daysThe domain of this cookie is owned by Nielsen. The cookie is used for online advertising by creating user profile based on their preferences.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
CookieDurationDescription
_fbp3 monthsThis cookie is set by Facebook to deliver advertisement when they are on Facebook or a digital platform powered by Facebook advertising after visiting this website.
fr3 monthsThe cookie is set by Facebook to show relevant advertisments to the users and measure and improve the advertisements. The cookie also tracks the behavior of the user across the web on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin.
IDE1 year 24 daysUsed by Google DoubleClick and stores information about how the user uses the website and any other advertisement before visiting the website. This is used to present users with ads that are relevant to them according to the user profile.
IMRID1 year 24 daysThe domain of this cookie is owned by Nielsen. The cookie is used for storing the start and end of the user session for nielsen statistics. It helps in consumer profiling for online advertising.
personalization_id2 yearsThis cookie is set by twitter.com. It is used integrate the sharing features of this social media. It also stores information about how the user uses the website for tracking and targeting.
TDID1 yearThe cookie is set by CloudFare service to store a unique ID to identify a returning users device which then is used for targeted advertising.
test_cookie15 minutesThis cookie is set by doubleclick.net. The purpose of the cookie is to determine if the user's browser supports cookies.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
CookieDurationDescription
adEdition1 dayNo description
akaas_MSNBC10 daysNo description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional1 yearThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others1 yearNo description
geoEdition1 dayNo description
next-i18next1 yearNo description
SAVE & ACCEPT
Powered by CookieYes Logo
Scroll Up