Abortion providers and their backers asked the Oklahoma Supreme Court on Friday to declare two state laws banning the procedure unconstitutional under the Oklahoma Constitution.
The Tulsa and Oklahoma City abortion providers and supporters are seeking both temporary and permanent injunctions to prohibit the state from enforcing the laws, one of which dates to 1910 and the other — Senate Bill 612 — was signed into law this year.
“Today, we’re challenging overlapping and contradictory bans on abortion care, including one ban that took effect when William Howard Taft was president and was invalidated before Richard Nixon resigned,” said Emily Wales, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains.
“The government got out of the business of blocking care 49 years ago, and our hope is that Oklahoma’s Supreme Court will recognize what the U.S. Supreme Court seems determined to ignore: The state has no place in private medical decisions.”
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The nonprofit organization provided abortion services in Oklahoma City prior to Gov. Kevin Stitt’s signing of laws this year that prohibited abortion in the state.
As a result, abortion has been unavailable in Oklahoma since May 25, according to the lawsuit.
The U.S. Supreme Court eliminated the federal constitutional right to an abortion on June 24 in a case known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Joining Planned Parenthood Great Plains in bringing the lawsuit Friday were the Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Blake Patton on behalf of the Oklahoma Call for Reproductive Justice, Tulsa Women’s Reproductive Clinic and its owner Dr. Alan Braid, Planned Parenthood of Arkansas and Eastern Oklahoma, and Dechert LLP.
The lawsuit cites Oklahomans’ constitutional right to due process protections and the right to health as reasons to overturn the laws. The petition also claims that the two challenged laws are unconstitutionally vague due to inconsistent and overlapping provisions with each other.
The lawsuit names in their officials capacities Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor, Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater, Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler, Lyle Kelsey as executive director of the Oklahoma State Board of Medical Licensure and Supervision, Katie Templeton as president of the Oklahoma State Board of Osteopathic Examiners, and Keith Reed as commissioner of the Oklahoma State Board of Health.
A spokeswoman for O’Connor said the Attorney General’s Office would not comment on active litigation.
“However, our office will defend current laws and the laws recently passed by the Legislature as we have always done,” spokeswoman Rachel Roberts said.
The two most-recently challenged laws provide for different penalties upon conviction
The 1910 law bans all abortions except those to “preserve” a person’s “life.” The law provides for a prison term of two to five years for those convicted of providing an abortion. The 2022 law, SB 612, provides for a prison term of up to 10 years and/or a $100,000 fine for those convicted of performing the procedure.
As with the 1910 laws, SB 612 provides for abortions only to save the life of the mother.
“There are now multiple cases pending before the Oklahoma Supreme Court asking them to restore abortion access in the state, and we hope the court will rule as soon as possible given the tremendous harm that is being inflicted on Oklahomans each day these bans remain in effect,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights.
“As more and more states ban abortion in the region, it is all the more imperative that this court act swiftly to rule under its own constitution and restore abortion access in the state. The people of Oklahoma have already gone too long without access.”
Since abortion became illegal in Oklahoma, thousands of residents have been forced to go out of state to receive abortion care or carry a pregnancy to term, said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
“For over a month, Oklahomans have been completely deprived of abortion access, and they cannot wait one moment more,” McGill Johnson said. “Today, we are asking this court not only to quickly block the state’s cruel abortion bans, but to do its job and protect the people of Oklahoma.”
Featured video: (Graphic language warning) Abortion rights protesters rally in Tulsa
A 17-year-old used her Instagram to draw a flood of hundreds to demand change and access to reproductive health care.
Gallery: Abortion legislation in Oklahoma through the years
Senate Bill 139: 2007
Public money and institutions are prohibited from being used to perform abortions in a measure that allowed abortions to save a mother's life, as well as in cases of rape or incest.
House Bill 2780: 2010-2012
The Oklahoma Supreme Court threw out a law requiring any woman seeking an abortion to have an ultrasound within an hour of the procedure and have its contents described to her, as well as another that put restrictions on the RU-486 abortion-inducing drug, and a ban on all medication abortions.
Senate Bill 1433: 2012
In 2012 the House Republican Caucus decided not to hear a measure that would have declared personhood at conception. The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that an initiative petition to have personhood declared at conception was unconstitutional. It would have let voters decide on an initiative defining a fertilized egg as a "person," thereby banning abortion and most forms of contraception.
House Bill 2226: 2013-2014
Rose Day at the Capitol in Oklahoma City is a faith-based event in which people talk with legislators about anti-abortion legislation and other issues.
An Oklahoma County judge threw out a 2013 law that would have required women under 17 to have a prescription to obtain the "morning after" birth control pill.
Senate Bill 1848: 2014-2016
The state high court on Dec. 14, 2016, struck down a law that would have required doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles.
Oklahoma's Senate Bill 1848, passed and signed in 2014, was ruled unconstitutional for creating an undue burden on a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy. A similar Texas law had been struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court only months earlier.
House Bill 2684: 2014
An Oklahoma County judge threw out a law that would have required doctors who treat women seeking a medication abortion to use a decade-old method considered less safe, less effective and more expensive. It required doctors to follow U.S. Food and Drug Administration protocols and barred off-label uses.
House Bill 1721: 2015
An Oklahoma County judge in October 2015 issued an injunction on a law that would have banned dilation and evacuation, a common second-semester abortion procedure.
The authors, Rep. Pam Peterson, R-Tulsa, and Sen. Josh Brecheen, R-Coalgate, called it the “Oklahoma Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act."
Senate Bill 1552: 2016
Gov. Mary Fallin vetoed a bill that would have made it a felony for physicians to perform abortions and revoke their medical licenses unless the abortion was necessary to save the life of the mother.
“The bill is so ambiguous and so vague that doctors cannot be certain what medical circumstances would be considered ‘necessary to preserve the life of the mother,’ ” Fallin said in a statement about the measure by Sen. Nathan Dahm, R-Broken Arrow.
