Oklahoma close to banning the ripping apart of unborn babies

OKLAHOMA CITY (Christian Examiner) -- An Oklahoma Senate committee approved a House-passed bill Monday to ban abortions known as "dilation and evacuation," typically employed in the second trimester of pregnancy.

The Senate Committee on Health and Human Services voted 7 to 1 to prohibit any procedure in which abortionists use instruments to rip apart the body of an unborn child in order to abort the baby's life. The bill now goes to the full Senate for a vote, the Associated Press reported.

The Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act is sponsored by state Rep. Pam Peterson and state Sen. Josh Brecheen.

If the bill passes the Oklahoma Senate, it would take effect November 1, 2015. Doctors could face two years of jail time and a $10,000 fine for violating the ban. Exceptions would be permitted, for example, if the pregnancy imperiled the physical life of the unborn child's mother.

According to the bill, a serious health risk to the mother requires "reasonable medical judgment" citing 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 does not exempt for "claimed" health risks such as a "diagnosis that the woman will engage in conduct which she intends to result in her death or in substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function."