Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards (D) signed into law a bill banning abortion after 15-weeks.

The Washington Free Beacon reports:

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards—one of the South’s lone Democrats left in statewide office—is facing a backlash from state and national pro-choice groups for supporting legislation restricting the practice of abortion.

Edwards bucked the national Democratic Party, which has long endorsed access to abortion in its official platform, Wednesday by announcing he had signed a bill banning abortion after 15 weeks.

The legislation, known as Senate Bill 181, was championed by Democratic state senator John Milkovich and amassed bipartisan support in both chambers of the Louisiana State Legislature. Apart from prohibiting abortion after a pregnancy surpasses 15 weeks “gestational age,” the law also imposes a penalty of up to two years in prison and a $1,000 fine for medical providers in violation.

The law explicitly includes language denoting a woman who procures an abortion after the 15-week window has lapsed is not to be subject to any legal punishment.

. . . . [State senator John] Milkovich, a pro-life Democrat serving his first term in the Louisiana State Senate, told the Washington Free Beacon he viewed S.B. 181 as a “great victory” for the unborn.

“This bill is a great victory for unborn children, who as common sense observation and human experience instruct are fully human beings,” Milkovich said. “They’re simply small and particularly vulnerable human beings.”