Judge strikes down Wyoming abortion laws, including its explicit ban on pills to end pregnancy
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — A state judge this week struck down Wyoming’s overall ban on abortion and its first-in-the-nation explicit prohibition on the use of medication to end pregnancy.
The decision marks another victory for abortion rights advocates after voters in seven states passed measures in support of abortion access.
Since 2022, Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens has ruled consistently three times to block the laws while they were disputed in court.
One Wyoming law that Owens said violated women’s rights under the state Constitution bans abortion except to protect a pregnant woman’s life or in cases involving rape and incest. The other made Wyoming the only state to explicitly ban abortion pills, though other states have instituted de facto bans on the medication by broadly prohibiting abortion.
The laws were challenged by four women, including two obstetricians, and two nonprofit organizations. One of the groups, Wellspring Health Access, opened as the state’s first full-service abortion clinic in years in April 2023 following an arson attack in 2022.
“This is a wonderful day for the citizens of Wyoming — and women everywhere who should have control over their own bodies,†Wellspring Health Access President Julie Burkhart said in a statement.
The recent elections saw voters in Missouri clear the way to undo one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion bans in a series of victories for abortion rights advocates. Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota, meanwhile, defeated similar constitutional amendments, leaving bans in place.
Anti-abortion advocates say they will quickly dismantle some of President Biden’s abortion policies once President-elect Donald Trump is in White House.
Abortion rights amendments also passed in Arizona, Colorado, Maryland and Montana. Nevada voters also approved an amendment in support of abortion rights, but they’ll need to pass it again it 2026 for it to take effect. Another that bans discrimination on the basis of “pregnancy outcomes†prevailed in New York.
The abortion landscape underwent a seismic shift in 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, ending a nationwide right to abortion and clearing the way for bans to take effect in most Republican-controlled states.
Currently, 13 states are enforcing bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with limited exceptions, and four have bans that kick in at or about six weeks into pregnancy — often before women realize they’re pregnant.
Nearly every ban has been challenged with a lawsuit. Courts have blocked enforcement of some restrictions, including bans throughout pregnancy in Utah and Wyoming. Judges struck down bans in Georgia and North Dakota in September 2024. Georgia’s Supreme Court ruled the next month that the ban there can be enforced while it considers the case.
In the Wyoming case, the women and nonprofits who challenged the laws argued that the bans stood to harm their health, well-being and livelihoods, claims disputed by attorneys for the state. The plaintiffs also argued that the bans violated a 2012 state constitutional amendment that gives competent Wyoming residents the right to make their own healthcare decisions.
Owens ruled that the abortion bans “will undermine the integrity of the medical profession by hamstringing the ability of physicians to provide evidence-based medicine to their patients.â€
The abortion laws impede the fundamental right of women to make healthcare decisions for an entire class of people — those who are pregnant — in violation of the state constitutional amendment, Owens ruled.
Wyoming voters approved the 2012 amendment amid fears of government overreach following approval of the federal Affordable Care Act and its initial requirements for people to have health insurance.
Attorneys for the state argued that healthcare, under the amendment, didn’t include abortion. Republican Gov. Mark Gordon, whose administration has defended the laws passed in 2022 and 2023, did not return an email message seeking comment.
Gruver writes for the Associated Press.
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