Oklahoma MPs have moved to effectively ban abortion in their state by making it a felony for doctors to perform the procedure - a push to ultimately overturn the US Supreme Court's 1973 decision legalising abortion nationwide.
The bill - the first of its kind in America - also would restrict any physician who performs an abortion from obtaining or renewing a licence to practise medicine in Oklahoma.
It passed 33-12 on Thursday with no discussion or debate as a handful of Republicans joined Democrats in voting against the bill sponsored by Republican Senator Nathan Dahm.
Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin, an anti-abortion Republican, has until Wednesday to sign the bill into law or veto it.
Spokesman Michael McNutt said she also could also allow the bill to become law "without approval" after the five-day period had elapsed.
He also said she would withhold comment until her staff had had time to review it.
Dahm made it clear he hoped his bill could lead to overturning Roe v. Wade.
"Since I believe life begins at conception, it should be protected, and I believe it's a core function of state government to defend that life from the beginning of conception," said Dahm (R-Broken Arrow).
But abortion rights supporters - and the state's medical association - have said the bill is unconstitutional.
Senator Ervin Yen, an Oklahoma City Republican and the only physician in the Senate, described the measure as "insane" and voted against it.
"Oklahoma politicians have made it their mission year after year to restrict women's access to vital healthcare services, yet this total ban on abortion is a new low," Amanda Allen, a lawyer for the New-York based centre said. "The Centre for Reproductive Rights is closely watching this bill and we strongly urge Governor Fallin to reject this cruel and unconstitutional ban."
Thursday's vote in the Senate comes as the Oklahoma Legislature nears a May 27 deadline for adjournment and is still grappling with a $1.3 billion budget hole that could lead to deep cuts to public schools, healthcare and the state's overcrowded prison system.
"Republicans don't have an answer for their failed education policies, failing healthcare policies and failing fiscal policies, so what do you do in that situation?" said Senate Democratic leader Sen. John Sparks. "You come up with an emotional distraction. That's what this bill is."
Nearly every year Oklahoma MPs have passed bills imposing new restrictions on abortions, but many of those laws have never taken effect. In all, eight of the state's separate anti-abortion measures have been challenged in court as unconstitutional in the past five years.
In 2013 the US Supreme Court declined to hear a case over an overturned Oklahoma law that would have required women to view an ultrasound of her fetus before an abortion was performed. Also in 2013, the Oklahoma Supreme Court struck down a law that would have effectively banned all drug-induced abortions in the state.
In 2014 the state Legislature approved a law requiring abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, but a challenge is pending before the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
Also on Thursday the Oklahoma House approved a bill that requires the state Department of Health to develop informational material "for the purpose of achieving an abortion-free society", but MPs didn't approve any funding for it. The measure, which will now go to the Senate, requires the health department to produce information about alternatives to abortion and the developmental stages of a fetus, but the bill's sponsor says it cannot be implemented without funding.
Trust Women, a Wichita, Kansas-based abortion rights foundation that's building an abortion clinic in Oklahoma City, says it's "dismayed" by the passage of the procedure-performing bill, but is undeterred in its plans to open the centre.
"Trust Women stands firm on our decision to open a clinic in the largest metropolitan area in the US without a provider," founder and CEO Julie Burkhart said on Thursday. "Women need the services we will offer."
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