OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma would ban a common second-trimester abortion procedure that critics describe as dismembering a fetus under a measure that lawmakers overwhelmingly approved Wednesday, a day after Kansas became the first state to prohibit the same procedure.

The Senate voted 37-4 for the bill, which now goes to Republican Gov. Mary Fallin. She has not said whether she will sign it, but she has previously signed other anti-abortion measures.

Under the bill, doctors cannot use forceps, clamps, scissors or similar instruments on a live fetus to remove it from the womb in pieces. Such instruments are used in dilation and evacuation procedures performed in the second trimester. Of the roughly 5,000 abortions performed in Oklahoma in 2013, about 5 percent involved this procedure, according to the Oklahoma State Department of Health.

“It’s gruesome,” said Sen. Josh Brecheen, who carried the bill in the Senate and graphically described the practice to his colleagues.

Critics of the bill, including Planned Parenthood, have accused its supporters of using inflammatory and non-medical terminology “to insert politics into personal medical decisions.” Abortion rights supporters said the procedure is often the safest for women seeking to terminate pregnancies during the second trimester.

The bill would ban the procedure except when necessary to save a woman’s life or prevent a serious health risk to the mother.

A similar measure was signed into law Tuesday by Kansas Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, and abortion rights groups are weighing a lawsuit. Proposals also are being considered in Missouri and South Carolina.


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