Irish Examiner view: Double standard at work in US South

Fetished 'right to life' doesn't tally with gun laws

Police officers stand near a makeshift memorial for the shooting victims at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Picture: Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images

Oklahoma, according to Rodgers and Hammerstein, is a state with “plenty of room to swing a rope, plenty of heart and plenty of hope”. And in a nation which seems entirely incapable of implementinggun control that would prevent the massacre of innocents, Oklahoma, which likes to call itself The Sooner State, has shown much alacrity in introducing the strictest abortion ban in the United States.

Its Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, has signed into law, regulations that, in effect, will end all access to the procedure. It will allow exceptions to save the life of a woman or if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest reported to police authorities.