Roe v. Wade

KGOU's Dick Pryor and QuorumCall's Shawn Ashley continue their countdown of the top ten Oklahoma stories of 2022. Which story will be number 1?

In response to the loss of constitutional protection for abortion and Oklahoma’s strict abortion laws, some Oklahomans are choosing sterilization to avoid unwanted pregnancies.

Oklahoma has some of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the nation, and an upcoming court ruling may help determine whether a Kansas-like Constitutional right to personal autonomy, including the decision to obtain an abortion, also exists in Oklahoma.

In Oklahoma and Texas, the laws don't clarify what counts as life-threatening. That leaves room for interpretation, and has already delayed critical care.

When Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey were overturned last week, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his opinion that previous rulings on sexual privacy, marriage equality and birth control access should be reconsidered because they’re based on the same constitutional mechanism as Roe and Casey. StateImpact spoke with OU political science professor and expert on gender and sexuality in law, Kathleen Tipler, about how the decision could reach well beyond abortion.

Oklahoma is one of 13 states with abortion "trigger laws" designed to go into effect in the event the U.S. Supreme Court banned the right to obtain an abortion. On Friday, the Court announced its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, triggering Oklahoma's anti-abortion law.

The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling will have a major impact on abortion access across the country, but the law won’t change much in Oklahoma.

In the waning days of the 2022 regular Oklahoma Legislative Session, Oklahoma lawmakers entered into a special session to consider how to spend almost two billion dollars in federal money the state has received under the American Rescue Plan Act.

The most important part of the legislative session is still a work in progress. With three weeks left before the Legislature adjourns sine die, budget negotiators are moving closer to finalizing the state budget and appropriations for the next fiscal year.

A majority of Oklahoma legislators celebrated Oklahoma's newest law that criminalizes abortion and makes the medical procedure virtually impossible to obtain. Arguably, it's the strictest such law in the nation, but additional anti-abortion legislation is also moving closer to passage.