(Fort Collins) Abortion remains legal in Wyoming following a state Supreme Court ruling that struck down laws including the first explicit ban on the abortion pill in the United States. The court ruled Tuesday that those laws violated the state Constitution.
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The justices ruled in favor of the state’s only abortion clinic and others who had sued against the bans, which were enacted in 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade.
Wellspring Health Access in Casper, abortion access advocacy group Chelsea’s Fund and four women, including two obstetricians, argued the laws violated a state constitutional amendment guaranteeing competent adults the right to make their own health care decisions.
The state’s lawyers, however, argued that abortion could not violate the Wyoming Constitution because it is not health care.
Voters approved this constitutional amendment in 2012 in response to the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The justices acknowledged that the amendment was not written to apply to abortion, but said it was not their role to “add words” to the state Constitution.
“However, lawmakers could ask Wyoming voters to consider a constitutional amendment that would more clearly address this issue,” the justices wrote in summarizing their decision, delivered by a vote of four to one.
Republican Gov. Mark Gordon said in a statement that he was disappointed by the decision and called on state lawmakers to pass a proposed constitutional amendment banning abortion this winter, which would be put to voters for a vote this fall.
“This decision may, for now, resolve a legal question, but it does not resolve the moral question, and it does not reflect the position of many Wyoming citizens, including my own. It is time for this issue to be put to a popular vote,” he argued.
Such an amendment would require a two-thirds vote to be brought up for consideration during the month-long legislative session devoted primarily to the state budget. But he would enjoy broad support in the Republican-dominated Legislature.
One of the laws invalidated Tuesday aimed to ban abortion, except to protect the life of the pregnant woman or in cases of rape or incest. The other law would have made Wyoming the only state to explicitly ban the abortion pill, although other states have instituted de facto bans by banning abortion generally.
Abortion has remained legal in the conservative state since Judge Melissa Owens of Teton County District Court in Jackson stayed the bans during court proceedings challenging them. Justice Owens declared these laws unconstitutional in 2024.
Wellspring Health Access and attorneys for both parties did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Last year, Wyoming passed additional laws requiring that abortion clinics be licensed surgical centers and that women receive an ultrasound before a medication abortion. The Supreme Court’s decision means the restrictions could go into effect, although a judge in another case suspended their application while the proceedings take their course.
