Oklahoma soon may protect unborn babies from dismemberment abortions after a judge denied abortion activists’ request Monday to block a ban on the brutal, inhumane procedure.
Oklahoma County District Court Judge Cindy Truong refused a request for a temporary injunction from the the Tulsa Women’s Clinic abortion facility and the Center for Reproductive Rights, the AP reports.
The pro-abortion groups are suing to overturn the ban on dismemberment abortions.
Abortion activists quickly slammed her ruling as a “rogue” decision, according to the report. She is the first judge to allow a dismemberment abortion ban to go into effect.
The pro-abortion groups also filed an emergency appeal to the state Supreme Court, so the law will not be enforced until the court hears the case, the report states.
The Oklahoma Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act bans dismemberment abortions, also known as D&E abortions, that tear nearly fully formed unborn babies limb from limb while their hearts are still beating. The method is a common second-trimester abortion procedure. Abortion practitioners who violate the law would face up to two years in prison as well as a $10,000 fine.
Gov. Mary Fallin signed the law in 2015, but pro-abortion groups immediately challenged it in court.
In July, Truong became the first judge in the country to uphold a dismemberment abortion ban.
Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter’s office celebrated her initial ruling as a major victory for human rights in America.
“Dismemberment abortions are barbaric, brutal and subject unborn children to more cruelty that we allow for death row inmates,” Hunter said, previously. “It is unconscionable to think that we would allow this practice to continue.”
Oklahoma was the second state in the nation to protect unborn children from dismemberment abortions that tear them apart limb from limb. Kansas became the first in 2015 when Gov. Sam Brownback signed similar legislation prohibiting dismemberment abortions in his state.
Since then, 12 states have passed similar legislation. Most of the laws are being blocked in court.
National Right to Life Committee, which wrote the model legislation, points to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the partial-birth abortion case as grounds for banning dismemberment abortions.
In his dissent to the Stenberg v. Carhart decision, former Justice Anthony Kennedy observed that in D&E dismemberment abortions: “The fetus, in many cases, dies just as a human adult or child would: It bleeds to death as it is torn limb from limb. The fetus can be alive at the beginning of the dismemberment process and can survive for a time while its limbs are being torn off.” Kennedy added in the court’s 2007 opinion, Gonzales v. Carhart, which upheld the ban on partial-birth abortion, that D&E abortions are “laden with the power to devalue human life…”
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Author: Micaiah Bilger
