Senate Bill 8 bans the procedure after about six weeks and allowing people to sue anyone who gets or facilitates an abortion.
Oklahoma’s Senate Bill 612, meanwhile, is one of the latest in a series of bills passed by conservative lawmakers across the country in the wake of Texas’ SB 8.
If so, Texans may have to travel even further to get care, according to Kathy Kleinfeld, an administrator at Houston Women’s Reproductive Services in the Heights.
Although SB 612 doesn’t put the onus on private citizens to enforce the law, several other bills filed in Oklahoma this year do.
Last fall, nearly 1,400 Texans a month had gone out of state looking for abortion care.
“In the first week of September, my colleagues who do the phone consults would be like, ‘wow, everyone is from Texas,'” said Dr.
Nathan Dahm, has called the measure the “strongest pro-life legislation in the country right now.” Supporters of the ban claim it’s legal because it targets the doctor rather than the person seeking the abortion.
That means other states will deal with an overflow of new patients come this fall: More Texans and a whole new group of Oklahomans will likely be packing into clinics in the Mountain West, Great Plains and Southwest.
“It’s really daunting,” said Dr.