Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt: ‘I Want to Be the Most Pro-Life Governor’

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) signed three pieces of pro-life legislation Monday, including a “heartbeat” bill that prohibits providers from performing abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which occurs generally between the sixth and eighth weeks of pregnancy.

“We want to be the most pro-life state in the country, and I want to be the most pro-life governor,” Stitt said, reported the Associated Press.

House Bill 2441 refers to the “heartbeat” legislation:

No person shall perform or induce an abortion upon a pregnant woman without first detecting whether or not her unborn child has a heartbeat. No person shall perform or induce an abortion upon a pregnant woman after such time as her unborn child has been determined to have a detectable heartbeat except if, in reasonable medical judgment, she has a condition that so complicates her medical condition that it necessitates the abortion of her pregnancy to avert her death or to avert serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function, not including psychological or emotional conditions.

The bill, which is scheduled to take effect November 1, states violators “shall be guilty of homicide.”

Stitt also signed into law a bill that mandates abortions are to be performed solely by board-certified OB/GYNs, and another that will revoke the medical license of a physician who performs an abortion not deemed “necessary to prevent the death of the mother or to prevent substantial or irreversible physical impairment of the mother that substantially increases the risk of death.”

“I’m keeping my promise to sign all pro-life legislation,” Stitt tweeted. “We now have three more laws protecting the lives of the unborn!”

(3/4) I'm keeping my promise to sign all pro-life legislation. We now have three more laws protecting the lives of the unborn! HB 2441, HB 1904, and HB 1102. pic.twitter.com/PVdRBELNZg

— Governor Kevin Stitt (@GovStitt) April 26, 2021

Using the narrative of the abortion industry that ending the life of the unborn is the equivalent of “health care,” Julie Burkhart, CEO of abortion rights group Trust Women, said in a statement the Oklahoma lawmakers who passed the pro-life bills are “wasting their time on restricting the ability of people to get safe and quality health care” by focusing on “radical and unconstitutional legislation that will only be thrown out of the courts.”

Oklahoma lawmakers also passed a “trigger bill” that would immediately make abortion illegal in the state if the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade. That bill awaits Stitt’s signature.