EMILYs List Statement on Oklahoma Governor Signing the Nation’s Strictest Abortion Ban

For Immediate Release
May 26, 2022 

EMILYs List Statement on Oklahoma Governor Signing the Nation’s Strictest Abortion Ban

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt signed into law the strictest abortion ban in the U.S. This law, already in effect today, bans abortion from the stage of “fertilization” with few exceptions and encourages enforcement from private citizens to sue health care professionals, similar to Texas S.B. 8. Laphonza Butler, president of EMILYs List, released the following statement:

“Yet again, Republicans have gone too far. At a moment when Americans are reeling from the horrific Texas school shooting which left families without their children, Gov. Kevin Stitt made the egregious decision to sign the nation’s strictest abortion ban into law in the state of Oklahoma. Republicans continue to show their true priorities. These bans are about nothing more than controlling our bodies and our futures, and they must be stopped. 

“The impact of this ban will be disastrous for Oklahomans, pushing essential health care out of reach for more than 900,000 people of reproductive age in the state, in addition to people in neighboring states, like Texas, who are currently forced to travel to Oklahoma for care. As we await a decision from the Supreme Court that could completely overturn the abortion protections in Roe v. Wade, it’s more essential than ever to elect a real pro-choice majority that will fiercely defend our reproductive rights and ensure everyone can get the health care they need, no matter where they live.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, has raised over $700 million to elect Democratic pro-choice women candidates. With a grassroots community of over five million members, EMILY's List helps Democratic women win competitive campaigns – across the country and up and down the ballot – by recruiting and training candidates, supporting and helping build strong campaigns, researching the issues that impact women and families, running nearly $50 million in independent expenditures in the last cycle alone, and turning out women voters and voters of color to the polls. Since our founding in 1985, we have helped elect the country's first woman as vice president, 159 women to the House, 26 to the Senate, 16 governors, and more than 1,300 women to state and local office. More than 40% of the candidates EMILYs List has helped elect to Congress have been women of color. After the 2016 election, more than 60,000 women reached out to EMILY's List about running for office laying the groundwork for the next decade of candidates for local, state, and national offices. In our effort to elect more women in offices across the country, we have created our Run to Win program, expanded our training program, including a Training Center online, and trained thousands of women.