In Oklahoma, a closing window to access abortion
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 6 April 2022
⏱️ 37 minutes
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Summary
On Tuesday, Oklahoma lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to ban most abortions in the state, passing a Republican bill that would make performing an abortion a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. If the law is signed — and not struck down by the courts — it will take effect this summer.
The state is also weighing two other bills modeled on the restrictive Texas law that has banned most abortions by employing a novel legal strategy that empowers private citizens to enforce the law through civil litigation. Both bills would take effect immediately if signed by the governor. And that could happen within the next few days.
National politics reporter Caroline Kitchener has been reporting on these laws. She and audio producer Rennie Svirnovskiy went to a pair of clinics in Tulsa to see how providers and patients were bracing themselves for what could be the last days of legal abortion in the state.
Read more:
Caroline Kitchener breaks down the bill that passed the Oklahoma state legislature in detail.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I've been spending time in abortion clinics for years and all that time I can talk to |
| 0:11.4 | staff about what they're seeing. |
| 0:12.7 | I can talk to doctors about what they're seeing. |
| 0:14.2 | I can talk to patients about their experience before and after they go. |
| 0:18.3 | But I had never been inside a consultation room with a patient and a doctor. |
| 0:25.1 | That is until last week. |
| 0:31.8 | Caroline Kitchener is a National Politics Reporter for the Post. |
| 0:35.2 | And last week Caroline sat in on a consultation with a patient at an abortion clinic in San |
| 0:40.5 | Antonio. |
| 0:42.4 | There was a woman who was lying on the table getting her ultrasound. |
| 0:49.9 | She had her hands on her stomach and she was staring up at the ceiling. |
| 0:57.2 | And as they were doing her ultrasound, her eyes were like clenched closed tight shut. |
| 1:02.6 | Like she was just tensing her whole body because she had just been told about the law in |
| 1:09.6 | Texas. |
| 1:10.6 | A law passed in September that outlawed abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. |
| 1:16.3 | She knew that it all came down to this moment was she before six weeks, was she after six |
| 1:21.8 | weeks, was she going to be able to get her abortion and she was waiting to see what they |
| 1:25.6 | were going to say. |
| 1:27.8 | And then the doctor, after gosh, it was like a minute and it felt long to me. |
| 1:33.9 | It must have felt longer to her. |
| 1:35.8 | The doctor says, you know, we can see your pregnancy. |
| 1:40.3 | And unfortunately, we can see cardiac activity. |
... |
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