OKLAHOMA CITY — Less than one-third of Oklahoma voters want a ban on all abortions and only Republicans are deeply divided on the question, according to a poll taken before the state Legislature approved bills this year aimed at shutting down most abortions.
The poll, taken by Amber Integrated in December of 500 registered Oklahoma voters, shows 31% would support a total ban on abortion if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade.
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 642: 2015-2016
The Oklahoma Supreme Court threw out a law targeted against child rapists that would have forced abortion providers to take a sample of the fetal tissue when the abortion patient is younger than 14 and send it to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.
The bill violated the state constitutional requirement that bills contain one subject, according to the ruling stating it had provisions that subject abortion providers to new requirements and penalize them substantially for violations.
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.
Senate Bill 612, effective August 2022
Attorney General John O’Connor (left) stands behind Gov. Kevin Stitt as he signs Senate Bill 612, which will provide a near-total abortion ban.
The law makes abortion a felony for those who provide the care, punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $100,000 fine. It makes an exception only for an abortion performed to save the life of the mother.
