April, 29 2022, 11:06am EDT
For Immediate Release
Legal Challenges Filed to Block Two Extreme Oklahoma Abortion Bans
A Texas-style copycat ban – passed today and would take effect as soon as the governor signs it.
WASHINGTON
Today, a coalition of Oklahoma abortion providers and a reproductive justice organization filed two separate challenges in state court to block two different abortion bans passed during the 2022 state legislative session. The six-week Texas-style abortion ban (S.B. 1503;challenge linked here), which passed today with no debate or questions allowed, would become effective immediately upon Gov. Kevin Stitt's signature. The other ban (S.B. 612; challenge linked here) would make providing an abortion a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and/or a $100,000 fine. The challenge to S.B. 1503 was filed directly in Oklahoma Supreme Court. The challenge to S.B. 612, filed in trial court, was added to an existing case challenging other abortion restrictions enacted in 2021 that are currently blocked.
S.B. 1503
S.B. 1503 creates a bounty-hunting scheme similar to Texas's S.B. 8, which encourages the general public to bring costly and harassing lawsuits against anyone they believe has provided or aided providing abortion in violation of the ban. Under this scheme, anyone who successfully sues an abortion provider, a health center worker, or any person who helps someone access an abortion after about six weeks in Oklahoma would be rewarded with at least $10,000. This scheme has successfully banned most abortions in Texas since it took effect in September 2021, with devastating effects on patients who are forced to flee the state for care, seek abortion outside the health care system, or carry pregnancies against their will.
Oklahoma will become the second state this year, after Idaho, to follow Texas's example in attempting to cut patients off from abortions at the earliest stages of pregnancy even while Roe still stands. In a move reserved for constitutional crises and other urgent situations, the challenge to S.B. 1503 was filed directly in Oklahoma Supreme Court. Petitioners requested an emergency order blocking the law from taking effect while litigation on the merits of the law proceeds. Although federal challenges to Texas's similar ban have been unsuccessful in blocking the law, there is significant precedent in Oklahoma state court to support plaintiffs' arguments for relief preventing this ban from going into effect.
S.B. 612
The other ban challenged today (S.B. 612) is a total ban on abortion in Oklahoma that is set to take effect in late summer 2022. S.B. 612 was signed into law by Gov. Kevin Stitt on April 12 and would make providing an abortion a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and/or a $100,000 fine. Today's filing seeks to add a challenge to S.B. 612 to an existing case - Oklahoma Call for Reproductive Justice v. O'Connor - which was filed in state court last year against a slew of abortion restrictions passed in 2021. Those included a ban on abortion as early as six weeks of pregnancy and a separate total abortion ban, which declared that providing any abortions qualifies as "unprofessional conduct" by physicians resulting in loss of licensure. All five laws challenged in the original suit are currently blocked. In today's filing, the plaintiffs requested to have S.B. 612 temporarily blocked like these other laws as litigation moves forward.
Quotes from attorneys and plaintiffs
"The Oklahoma Supreme Court has repeatedly found that the state legislature's extreme attempts to restrict abortion are unconstitutional, and these bans are some of the most extreme yet," said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights. "We are asking the state courts to uphold the State Constitution and apply Oklahoma precedent to block these insidious abortion bans before they take effect. Oklahoma is a critical state for abortion access right now, with many Texans fleeing to Oklahoma for abortion care. These bans would further decimate abortion access across the South."
"To limit a person's freedom and autonomy is unconscionable and unconstitutional. Unless these abortion bans are stopped, Oklahomans will be robbed of the freedom to control their own bodies and futures," said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO, Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "For more than seven months, Oklahoma abortion providers have taken in patients forced to leave Texas for essential care. The governor may joke about stopping people from crossing the Oklahoma border for abortion, but this is no laughing matter. Unless these bans are blocked, patients will be turned away, people seeking abortion will be unable to access essential care in their own communities, and their loved ones could be stopped from supporting them due to fear of being sued. We've told Oklahoma politicians loud and clear: keep your bans off our bodies. Today, we're taking the state to court to stop these bans from robbing Oklahomans of abortion access."
"These abortion bans will push abortion access out of reach for many communities who already face often insurmountable barriers to health care, including Black and brown communities, low-income communities, and people who live in rural areas," said Tamya Cox-Toure, co-chair, Oklahoma Call for Reproductive Justice. "These are the same communities who are most impacted by the maternal health crisis occurring in our country and in our state. The lawmakers who passed these bans do not care about access to healthcare, and we can't allow this law to take effect."
"As a physician who also provides abortions in Texas, I have seen firsthand the impact of a bounty-hunting scheme and abortion ban on patients and physicians," said Dr. Alan Braid, owner, Tulsa Women's Reproductive Clinic. "They are designed to threaten and intimidate physicians into not providing constitutionally protected health care, and force pregnant people to travel hundreds of miles to receive care. The pain this has caused in Texas is unfathomable, and I will fight alongside these other providers and advocates to prevent this law from taking effect in Oklahoma."
"Patients who are crossing state lines to get abortion services have the exact same question we do: why are their rights to make personal medical decisions less protected in one state than in another?" said Emily Wales, interim president and CEO, Planned Parenthood Great Plains. "Planned Parenthood Great Plains' providers have served thousands of Texans in the past seven months because of their state's harsh bounty-hunting scheme, and we have been proud to stand with them and provide essential, constitutionally protected abortion services. Now, rather than serving as a haven for patients unable to get care at home, Oklahoma politicians have made outcasts of their own people. With today's filings, we lift up the patients who will otherwise be unable to get care and ask the court to do its most essential function: honor the constitution and the individuals who need its protections."
If any of the abortion bans the legislature has passed in this session or the last take effect, abortion access will be almost entirely cut off for the thousands of patients who receive abortions in Oklahoma each year. The bans would also decimate abortion access for surrounding states: Since Texas's S.B. 8 took effect, Oklahoma clinics have reported huge upticks in Texas patients, resulting in weeks-long wait times. Planned Parenthood released data in February showing that, in the first four months after S.B. 8 took effect, more than half of the patients at its Oklahoma health centers were from Texas, compared to less than 10% in the prior year. Overall, during that period, these Oklahoma health centers saw a nearly 2500% increase in Texas patients.
The challenge to S.B. 1503 was filed in Oklahoma Supreme Court against the State of Oklahoma and all 77 state court clerks. The plaintiffs - Oklahoma Call for Reproductive Justice, Dr. Alan Braid, Tulsa Women's Reproductive Clinic, Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, and Planned Parenthood of Arkansas & Eastern Oklahoma - are represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and Blake Patton.
Oklahoma Call for Reproductive Justice v. O'Connor (to which the challenge to S.B. 612 was added today) was filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Dechert LLP, and Blake Patton on behalf of the Oklahoma Call for Reproductive Justice, Tulsa Women's Reproductive Clinic, Dr. Alan Braid, Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, and Planned Parenthood of Arkansas and Eastern Oklahoma.
The Center for Reproductive Rights is a global human rights organization of lawyers and advocates who ensure reproductive rights are protected in law as fundamental human rights for the dignity, equality, health, and well-being of every person.
(917) 637-3600LATEST NEWS
Green, Indigenous Groups Warns Arctic Still at Grave Drilling Risk When Trump Returns
"Drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is all risk with no reward," said one advocate.
Dec 09, 2024
Wildlife protection groups and Indigenous leaders in Alaska said Monday that they would push to discourage bidding in an oil and gas lease sale just announced by the U.S. Interior Department for part of the Arctc National Wildlife Refuge.
Under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which opened the refuge for oil and gas drilling, the Biden administration announced the second of two lease sales, set to be held on January 9, 2025.
The first Trump administration held the initial lease sale in 2021, but with banks and insurance companies increasingly reticent to back drilling projects in the area, it generated little interest and led to less than 1% of the projected sale revenue.
Releasing its final record of decision, the Interior Department said Monday that 400,000 acres of wilderness in the refuge's 1.6-million-acre northwest Coastal Plain would be put up for bidding at a minimum price of $30 per acre—despite vocal opposition from the Gwich'in Nation and the Iñupiat Alaska Natives.
The land supports local communities as well as porcupine caribou herds and polar bears.
"Our way of life, our food security, and our spiritual well-being is directly tied to the health of the caribou and the health of this irreplaceable landscape," Kristen Moreland, executive director of Gwich'in Steering Committee, toldBloomberg News. "Every oil company stayed away from the first lease sale, and we expect them to do the same during the second."
The record of decision concludes the Bureau of Land Management's process for developing a supplemental environmental impact statement, which was required after President-elect Donald Trump's first administration completed an analysis with "fundamental flaws and legal errors," as the Sierra Club said Monday.
Selling the drilling rights just before Trump takes office could complicate the GOP's plans to hold a more expansive sale later on, but Dan Ritzman, director of Sierra Club's Conservation Campaign, emphasized that regardless of who is in office when the sale takes place, "oil and gas development in the Arctic Refuge is a direct threat to some of the last untouched landscapes on Alaska's North Slope and to the caribou herds that the Gwich'in people rely on."
"The 2017 tax act, forced through Congress by Donald Trump and his Big Oil CEO allies, opened up the Coastal Plain to oil and gas leasing," said Ritzman. "Letting him oversee a lease sale over these pristine lands would be beyond irresponsible. In the meantime, President [Joe] Biden should listen to the Gwich'in and do all that he can to preserve these lands and waters. His legacy is on the line."
Erik Grafe, an attorney at environmental law firm Earthjustice, said the group is "committed to going to court as often as necessary to defend the Arctic Refuge from oil drilling and will work toward a more sustainable future that does not depend on ever-expanding oil extraction."
"Drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is all risk with no reward," said Grafe. "Oil drilling would destroy this beautiful land, held sacred by Gwich'in people, and would further destabilize the global climate, but it offers zero benefit to taxpayers or consumers."
Defenders of Wildlife called on Congress to repeal the 2017 tax law's mandate for leasing sales in the "iconic American landscape" of the Arctic Refuge.
"Turning the coastal plain into an oilfield will obliterate the pristine wilderness of the Arctic Refuge," said Nicole Whittington-Evans, Alaska senior program director for the group, "directly threatening the future of the Porcupine caribou herd and the physical, cultural, and spiritual existence of the Gwich'in people who depend on them."
Keep ReadingShow Less
To Thwart Trump Killing Spree, Biden Urged to Commute Death Penalty Cases
The former president, warned a broad rights coalition, "executed more people than the previous ten administrations combined."
Dec 09, 2024
A large and diverse coalition of broad coalition of rights organizations on Monday sent a letter to U.S. President Biden Monday, urging him to commute the sentences of all 40 individuals who are on federal death row.
The letter adds to a chorus of voices—including prosecutors and law enforcement officials—advocating for Biden to use his clemency powers to issue such commutations before he departs office.
The calls for Biden to issue pardons and commutations have only grown since the president issued a pardon for his son, clearing Hunter Biden of wrongdoing in any federal crimes he committed or may have committed in the last 11 years.
The joint letter to Biden was backed by over 130 organizations, including the ACLU, Brennan Center for Justice, and The Sentencing Project, commends his administration's "actions to repudiate capital punishment, including imposing a moratorium on executions for those sentenced to death, and for publicly calling for an end to the use of the death penalty during your 2020 campaign. In the face of a second Trump administration, more is necessary."
"President Trump executed more people than the previous ten administrations combined. Of those he executed, over half were people of color: six Black men and one Native American. The only irreversible action you can take to prevent President-elect Trump from renewing his execution spree, as he has vowed to do, is commuting the death sentences of those on federal death row now," the letter states.
The letter cites additional reasons that Biden ought to commute the sentences, including that the death penalty "has been rooted in slavery, lynchings, and white vigilantism."
A separate letter to Biden—sent in November by group of attorneys general, law enforcement officials, and others—argues that "condemning people to death by the state does not advance public safety. The death penalty fails as an effective deterrent and does not reduce crime. As an outdated, error-riddled, and racially-biased practice, its continued use—and the potential for its abuse—erodes public trust in the criminal legal system and undermines the legitimacy of the entire criminal legal system."
Matt Bruenig, president of the People's Policy Project think tank, directly tied Biden's inaction on this issue to the pardon he issued for his son in a blog post last week, writing that "if Biden does not act, there is little doubt that Trump will aggressively schedule executions in his next term. Their blood will primarily be on Trump's hands, but, if Biden does not act to prevent it, his hands will be bloody too."
The call for commutations for death row prisoners aligns with a wider push for the President to use his clemency powers before he leaves office.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), who has been particularly vocal on this issue, said Sunday on social media that President Biden "must use his clemency power to change lives for the better. And we have some ideas on who he can target: Folks in custody with unjustified sentencing disparities, the elderly and chronically ill, people on death row, women punished for crimes of their abusers, and more."
Pressley was one of over 60 members of Congress who sent a letter to Biden last month, encouraging Biden to intervene to help these groups.
Several lawmakers have specific pardons or commutations in mind, according to Axios. For example, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has urged Biden to pardon Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has called for a pardon of Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier, per Axios.
So far, Biden has granted far fewer clemency petitions (161 total) than former President Barrack Obama, according to the Department of Justice's Office of the Pardon Attorney, and a few dozen less than President-elect Trump did during his entire first presidency. However, in 2022, Biden did grant full and unconditional pardons to all U.S. citizens convicted of simple federal marijuana possession—a move that was cheered by advocates.
According to The New York Times, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said last week that Biden was expected to make more clemency announcements "at the end of his term."
"He's thinking through that process very thoroughly," she said.
Keep ReadingShow Less
62% of Americans Agree US Government Should Ensure Everyone Has Health Coverage
The new poll shows the highest level of support in a decade for the government ensuring all Americans have healthcare.
Dec 09, 2024
Public sentiment regarding the nation's for-profit healthcare system—an outlier among wealthy nations—has dominated the national news in recent days following last week's killing of an insurance executive in New York.
On Monday, just hours before a suspect in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was arrested by police, a new Gallup poll found a 62% majority in the U.S. believe the government should ensure all Americans have healthcare coverage—the highest percentage in more than a decade.
Just 42% of people in 2013 believed it was the government's responsibility to make sure everyone in the country had health coverage—a low since the beginning of this century.
The poll found that a majority of Republicans still believe ensuring health coverage is not the government's job, but the majority has shrunk since 2020.
That year, only 22% of Republican voters believed the government should ensure everyone in the country has healthcare, but that number has now grown to 32%.
The percentage of Independents who think the issue is in the government's purview has also gone up by six points since 2020, and Democratic support remains high, currently at 90%.
Americans have vented their frustrations about the current for-profit health insurance system in recent days as police searched for a suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, before arresting Luigi Mangione in Pennsylvania on Monday. Mangione, according to claims by police, was found with a manifesto that railed against the insurance industry.
Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield last week also faced public outcry and was forced to reverse a decision to slash coverage for anesthesia care, with U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) saying the move indicated that "the current system is broken."
"Democrats will regain trust by standing up to special interest insurance companies and fighting for Medicare for All," he said.
President-elect Donald Trump and other Republicans, who are set to control both chambers of Congress starting in January, have indicated that they would go in the opposite direction, working to weaken the popular, government-run Medicare program by promoting Medicare Advantage, which is administered by for-profit companies like United and is already used by half of Medicare beneficiaries.
But one of Trump's top allies, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, waded into the debate last week about the current healthcare system, questioning why the U.S. pays far more in administrative healthcare costs than other wealthy countries and suggesting Americans don't "get their money's worth."
Another poll released last Friday found Americans' positive opinion of the nation's healthcare quality has declined to its lowest point since 2001, with most agreeing the U.S. system dominated by private insurers has "major problems."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular