PETER ALEXANDER: Late yesterday, Oklahoma lawmakers passed a bill making it a felony for doctors to perform abortions except when it comes to saving a mother's life. No exceptions for rape or incest. The state's governor now has until Wednesday to veto the measure or it becomes law. The bill is aimed at ultimately overturning the U.S. Supreme Court's decision that legalized abortion nationwide. Joining us now is MSNBC national reporter Irin Carmon. ... Is this something that the state can enforce?



IRIN CARMON: In a word, no. At least according to 43 years of Supreme Court precedent. What this bill does is lay a marker, it declares the intention of an overwhelming number of legislators in Oklahoma that their fervent desire is to ban abortion entirely. That said since Roe v Wade the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that you cannot ban abortion before fetal viability, that is when the fetus can survive outside as a baby. This is really more legislation as public relations. Mary Fallin has signed numerous restrictions on abortion that probably are enforceable and have been enforced. Across the country there have been more than 21 abortion restrictions this year so far that are being enforced such as 72-hour waiting periods, ultrasound requirements. This law certainly very dramatic, promising three years in prison, a felony for doctors. In the immediate term is unlikely to be enforced. That said, if the composition of the Supreme Court changes by as many as two votes, that is not going to be so certain. Then it's possible that the kinds of laws that we're seeing these states pass that are outright bans on abortion with very few exceptions, it's possible to see that those will be enforced indeed.



ALEXANDER: It's a point that Hillary Clinton, both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have made over the campaign. It also comes just days after Donald Trump introduced the names of 11 potential Supreme Court justices going forward. I was reading through some of the coverage of this. The only doctor in the Oklahoma Senate, a Republican, voted no, calling this insane. The doctor, Senator Ervin Yen, predicted it would be declared “null and void should it be signed into law," that’s according to The Oklahoman, the local newspaper there in Oklahoma, right now. But what you talk about is this isn't just unique to Oklahoma in some ways, this has been a battle we're witnessing in states across the country, this effort to restrict people's access to abortion.



CARMON: Right. And the Supreme Court is currently considering a law out of Texas that enacts restrictions on clinics that could cut the number of clinics down there by 10. So this is very much a live issue, particularly with an eight-member Supreme Court. In that case we really don't know what's going to happen. It's possible that the kinds of restrictions we're seeing on the state level, particularly red states, are going to be increasingly enforced, that it will be increasingly difficult for women to access abortions. What's unlikely is we're going to see at least in the short term anything like an outright ban. Instead what you're going to see is it's going to be extremely hard to access a clinic. There are going to be a lot of hoops to jump. It's going to be difficult to pay for it. Many of those currently in place in many of these states. But for now the Oklahoma law in particular is kind of a showmanship law that is a preview of what's to come up if the justices like the ones Donald Trump names end up on the court.