Planned Parenthood attacks Oklahoma’s GOP governor over abortion ban

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The political arm of the nation’s largest abortion provider is going to war with the governor of Oklahoma following his approval of a near-total ban on abortion in the state.

In a press release Planned Parenthood Action Fund announced that it was launching a digital ad campaign criticising Kevin Stitt after he appeared to joke about using the state’s Highway Patrol officers to arrest Texans who sought abortion care in his state following the passing of new restrictions on abortions there.

“This session has made clear that anti-abortion policymakers have no interest in protecting essential health care for Oklahoma’s 900,000 women, and more transgender, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary people of reproductive age. PPAF is mobilizing hundreds of thousands of Oklahomans to stand up and tell Gov. Stitt: Abortion access isn’t a joke,” declared the group in the news release.

The group says it is putting “nearly six figures” behind the ad campaign, which will run in Oklahoma and the immediate surrounding areas where some including Texans may previously have crossed state lines to seek abortion care in the Sooner state.

The ads will run on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, and a handful of other websites and platforms according to PPAF.

Oklahoma’s new restrictions on abortion are part of a wave of efforts by GOP-led state legislatures around the country to pass bills into law that directly challenge the standard for abortion rights set by the Supreme Court in Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood v Casey.

The restrictions signed into law by Mr Stitt are the most restrictive yet, totally banning abortion in the state without exception for rape or incest and allowing the procedure only for the purpose of saving the mother’s life.

Along with laws in Mississippi and Texas, the Oklahoma Republicans’ effort hinges on hopes of abortion foes that the new rightward shift of the Court that occurred under the Trump administration will mean the first real opportunity for conservatives to roll back abortion rights in decades.

“As governor, I represent all four million Oklahomans, and they overwhelmingly support protecting life in the state of Oklahoma. We want Oklahoma to be the most pro-life state in the country. We want to outlaw abortion in the state of Oklahoma,” the governor declared at his bill signing ceremony on 12 April.