<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=192888919167017&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">
Friday, March 29, 2024
March 29, 2024

Linkedin Pinterest

Okla. backs ban on abortion method used in 2nd trimester

Unclear if governor will sign bill; Kansas 1st to prohibit step

The Columbian
Published: April 8, 2015, 5:00pm

OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma would ban a common second-trimester abortion procedure that critics describe as dismembering a fetus under a measure that lawmakers overwhelmingly approved Wednesday, a day after Kansas became the first state to prohibit the same procedure.

The Senate voted 37-4 for the bill, which now goes to Republican Gov. Mary Fallin. She has not said whether she will sign it, but she has previously signed other anti-abortion measures.

Under the bill, doctors cannot use forceps, clamps, scissors or similar instruments on a live fetus to remove it from the womb in pieces. Such instruments are used in certain dilation and evacuation procedures performed in the second trimester. Of the roughly 5,000 abortions performed in Oklahoma in 2013, about 5 percent were performed using this procedure, according to the Oklahoma State Department of Health.

Critics of the bill, including Planned Parenthood, have accused its supporters of using inflammatory and non-medical terminology “to insert politics into personal medical decisions.” Abortion rights supporters said the procedure is often the safest for women seeking to terminate pregnancies during the second trimester.

“While women should not have to justify their personal medical decisions, the reality is that nine in 10 abortions in the U.S. occur in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy,” Angie Remington, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, said in a statement. “Abortion in the second trimester of pregnancy is less common, but in all cases, a woman and her doctor need every medical option available.”

The bill would ban the procedure except when necessary to save a woman’s life or prevent a serious health risk to the mother.

Kansas Republican Gov. Sam Brownback signed a similar measure into law in Kansas on Wednesday, and abortion rights groups in that state said they are considering a lawsuit.

Loading...