Republican Gov. Jim Justice signed a law banning abortion at all stages of pregnancy, making West Virginia the second state to enact a law banning the procedure since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.
He said the bill would come into effect immediately, barring criminal penalties within 90 days.
Justice described the legislation on Twitter as "a bill that will save lives".
"I stated from the beginning that if WV legislators presented me a bill that preserved life and provided fair and logical exceptions, I would sign it," he added. "And that's what I did today."
Medical crises, rape and incest victims up to eight weeks of pregnancy for adults and fourteen weeks for children are excluded from the restriction.
48 hours prior to the surgery, victims must report their assault to law police. Police or a doctor can be contacted by minors, who must then inform police.
At least two Republican lawmakers have claimed that the bill's requirement that abortions be carried out by doctors in hospitals was meant to prevent the Women's Health Centre, the state's only abortion clinic, from continuing to conduct the procedure, which it has done since 1976.
Abortion providers who violate the law risk up to 10 years in prison.
The executive director of the Women's Health Centre of West Virginia, Katie Quinonez, said the clinic's attorney urged them to stop performing abortions immediately after lawmakers passed the bill on Tuesday.
The staff spent Tuesday night and Wednesday cancelling dozens of appointments and giving them the means to make out-of-state appointments and money to aid with the procedure and travel costs.
Abortion restrictions in Indiana, which were passed in August, went into effect yesterday.
With the addition of Indiana and West Virginia, there are now more than a dozen states that have abortion restrictions, although most of them were already in place when the Supreme Court's decision to strike down the right to an abortion was made.
The ongoing debate within and outside of the Republican Party was heightened on Tuesday when Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina introduced a bill that would outlaw abortion nationwide after the 15th week of pregnancy, with very few exceptions. However, the proposal has almost no chance of passing in the Democratic-controlled Congress.
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