Oklahoma’s Latest Anti-Abortion Law Wants to Scare Residents From Helping Each Other

Abortion laws are confusing—if not deadly—and off the bat, we’ve already seen the fallout of last week’s judicial mess around mifepristone, the first of two pills taken in an abortion medication. (To recap: after a federal appeals court tried to put a full stop telehealth abortions—even in states where abortion is protected—the Supreme Court temporarily froze the decision a few days later.) Doctors and patients have since been confused on what is and what isn’t allowed, and providers are now switching to alternative medications.

For Oklahoma, this massive pile of quagmired bullshit got even foggier on Friday, when Gov. Kevin Stitt (R-Okl.) signed into law H.B. 1168, an effort to further restrict—and ultimately eliminate—access to telehealth abortions. 

“This is a disgusting attempt to scare Oklahomans out of seeking abortion care and scare parents, friends, and doctors away from helping them,” Nimra Chowdhry, senior state legislative counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, told Jezebel in a statement. “They are so fixated on forcing people to have children that they are willing to tear families apart and throw parents in jail.”

Under Oklahoma’s current abortion ban, which was signed into law by Stitt in 2022, it’s already a felony to prescribe or provide any kind of “medicine, drug or substance” that can cause an abortion. H.B. 1168 layers an extra felony on top of that, with penalties doubly as severe. Specifically, it threatens a new charge on anyone accused of sending someone in the state abortion pills without a prescription with up to a $100,000 fine, and up to 10 years in prison. There are a few exceptions, such as when a woman has an ectopic pregnancy or a sudden miscarriage. The bill was advanced by the Senate late April in a 37-10 vote. 

The bill makes “trafficking an abortion-inducing drug” (which, let’s be clear, is not a thing) a crime, punishable with a fine up to $100,000 and/or jail time up to 10 years. The bill’s wording is purposely vague, broad and difficult to enforce. It’s designed to create confusion and fear.

— Center for Reproductive Rights (@reprorights.org) May 1, 2026 at 7:50 PM

The bill’s author, Rep. Denise Crosswhite Hader (R-Piedmont), praised the news, saying the legislation would “sav[e] lives” and protect women… which just, plainly, is untrue. The real facts here is that mifepristone is safe—safer than Tylenol and Viagra—and abortion access remains popular among all Americans. And for those stuck in states where abortion is banned, telehealth abortions are a lifeline—which is why anti-abortion freaks like Hader are tripping over themselves to try and eliminate access to them. 

Specifically, the bill poses another threat to shield laws, which allow providers in states where abortion is protected to prescribe abortion pills to patients in states where it is banned. Still, its thanks to these states’ rights that abortion medications accounted for 27% of all abortions in the first half of 2025, according to the nonprofit Society of Family Planning, which regularly releases new #WeCount data—a project that began in 2022 to track abortions. And per numbers obtained by the Guttmacher Institute earlier this year, telehealth abortions have also become much more common in the last few years.

“The reality is that you can’t stop people from seeking abortions,” Chowdhry says. “They always have and always will—and Oklahoma politicians can’t get over it.”