In Oklahoma, providers feel the brunt of contradictory abortion bans

• Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt has signed five abortion bans into law in 13 months. One has rape exemptions; the others don't.
• A provider describes frantically canceling appointments, telling one rape victim they were unable to help her.

Andrea Gallegos, executive administrator of the Tulsa Women's Clinic, has felt the brunt of Oklahoma's recent wave of abortion bans.

Oklahoma's Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, has signed five into law in the last 13 months. The two he signed in May are so-called bounty laws that depend on civilian enforcement, so they have already taken effect even as the nation waits for the Supreme Court's ruling on Roe v. Wade.

The first bounty law Stitt signed, in early May, House Bill 1503, banned all abortions after six weeks, with no exemptions for rape or incest.

Gallegos described in an affidavit how on the very next day, her clinic had to cancel 35 appointments. "I cannot express how devastating these calls have been or how distraught patients are," she said, "when we tell them that due to S.B. 1503 we cannot provide them care."

One of them was a patient on her way to the clinic who said she had been raped. The woman asked if there was an exception so she could still have the procedure.

"S.B. 1503 has no exception for rape," Gallegos told her.

"I said that we would marshal any resources we could to help her, but she did not come to the clinic," she said in the affidavit. "We were unable to help her."

Three weeks later, Stitt signed the second bounty law, HB 4327, which by one measure is more extreme — it bans abortions starting at fertilization. But that law does have exemptions for pregnancies that result from rape or incest, as long as they are reported to law enforcement.

If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, Oklahoma's enforcement landscape will become even more complex. Oklahoma also has two new "trigger laws" on the books — Senate Bill 918 and Senate Bill 1555 — that criminalize abortion if Roe is overturned, as well as Senate Bill 612, signed in April, which makes providing an abortion a criminal offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison or a $100,000 fine.

When questioned about why the exemptions aren't consistent across bills, Republican Sen. Nathan Dahm, the primary sponsor of SB 612 and a cosponsor of HB 4327, told Insider, "It's multiple different versions at different stages to try to protect even more lives of the unborn." Dahm is currently running for US Senate.

The overlapping laws with conflicting exemptions for when a pregnant person will be permitted to have an abortion threaten to create chaos across Oklahoma, according to an Insider investigation. It remains unclear when exactly doctors will be permitted to provide care.

Meanwhile, providers like Gallego have been forced to turn away patients in need of care. According to Gallego's affidavit, another patient told clinic staff that she was afraid of her spouse, who had arrived at the clinic and was combative.

"She asked the staff to inform her abusive partner of the reason that she could not get the abortion because she was afraid that he would lash out at her," Gallegos said. "The patient went home with her partner."

There was also a couple traveling from Texas who begged the clinic for care. They had already taken off work and rented a car for the out-of-state drive.

"We thought we had time to see them before the law would take effect," Gallegos said. "But we did not."

Confusion about what is legal

Dana Stone, a longtime OB-GYN in Oklahoma City, is also stuck trying to make sense of her state's conflicting laws.

After spending over 25 years practicing medicine in the state, she's unsure about whether she can even provide her patients with basic information about how to safely terminate a pregnancy.

"It's going to be very confusing, it's going to make it difficult for patients to know all of their options if they're having an unwanted pregnancy or a medically dangerous pregnancy or an abnormal pregnancy," Stone told Insider. "This just is very intimidating to look at all these new laws and not quite be sure how to navigate taking care of patients now."

During a press call, Rabia Muqaddam, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, described Oklahoma state legislators as "extraordinarily sloppy."

The legislature "repeatedly enacts overlapping laws in an insane way that makes no sense," Muqaddam said. "There's really no rhyme or reason other than a radical attempt to just confuse people, create chaos, and wreak as much havoc as they can possibly do on people who are seeking abortion and the providers who provide it."

Emily Wales, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, said her team is fielding calls from patients who don't know that, for now, Roe is still the law of the land — that the constitutional right to an abortion remains intact.

"Oklahomans are very much confused about what is or is not legal," Wales said. "They feel that their decisions about their healthcare are criminalized."

She said Planned Parenthood is currently talking to patients about how to travel to states like Kansas or New Mexico or Colorado to access services. But she knows that will pose enormous hardships for many of them.

"Telling people now, 'Okay, can you get to Kansas City? Can you get to Denver?' That is going to be overwhelming to many of the people we serve," she said. "The impact on their lives is indescribable."

Stone said she's contacted the attorneys at her hospital system to seek guidance on the kinds of communication she can have without being accused of breaking the law.

"If I decide that she needs an intervention that can terminate a pregnancy to save her life, will the anesthesiologist be okay with getting on board? Will the nurses be okay assisting with it? There's a whole lot of people who have to work to keep the patient safe during her hospitalization who might be afraid to take care of her," she told Insider. "We're going to have to lean very hard on attorneys to help us try and interpret these laws. I have not seen any of the legislators or the governor willing to give specific advice on how we're supposed to navigate this."

Read Insider's full investigation here: Oklahoma lawmakers passed 5 contradictory abortion bans. No one knows which laws will be enforced.