Wyoming

Will a new Wyoming law protect providers or limit abortions? It depends on which lawyer you ask. – WyoFile

Published

9 months ago

June 23, 2025

Will a new Wyoming law protect providers or limit abortions? It depends on which lawyer you ask. – WyoFile

The same group of abortion rights advocates whose legal challenges have stymied past attempts to stop or limit abortion in Wyoming is seeking to block part of another new law.

That statute, which goes into effect July 1, codifies what is already a long-standing medical practice: that providers can legally prescribe U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved medications for unapproved or off-label uses without fear of punishment from Wyoming licensing boards. But the new law exempts drugs intended to induce an abortion from those protections.

Abortion rights advocates worry the law “indirectly bans abortion medication by threatening physicians and pharmacists with disciplinary action for prescribing off-label use” of certain drugs that are commonly used for medication abortions. On Monday, they asked a judge to block enforcement of the part of the statute that pertains to abortion while their broader lawsuit against it and two other new abortion laws proceed through the courts.

Filings from the lawsuit challenging Wyoming’s abortion bans. (Angus M. Thuermer, Jr./WyoFile)

State attorneys, who are defending all three of the laws, asked Judge Thomas T.C. Campbell to allow the off-label law to go into effect as written. They dispute that the law is another attempt to limit access to abortion medications in Wyoming. Instead, they contend it merely clarifies that the law would not supersede the Wyoming Legislature’s 2023 ban on abortion medications, which is on hold pending a Wyoming Supreme Court ruling expected later this year.

In the meantime, abortion remains legal in Wyoming.

Off-label prescriptions

Prescribing medications for off-label purposes — in other words, uses not approved by the FDA — is common practice and can be a valuable tool for health care providers. Drugs approved to treat one type of cancer might be prescribed off-label for another type of cancer. Or a doctor might, for example, prescribe propranolol, which is approved for treatment of high blood pressure, for some types of anxiety. A medication in a different dose than what is FDA-approved would also qualify as off-label use.

In 2023, the Wyoming Legislature considered a bill intended to offer protections for providers who prescribe off-label drugs. Then Rep. Sarah Penn, R-Lander, sponsored the bill in the wake of a COVID-era controversy over hydroxychloroquine, an FDA-approved malaria drug that some providers prescribed to treat the virus. Some of those doctors faced the prospect of disciplinary actions in other states for providing what critics said was misinformation about the drug.

Rep. Gary Brown listens at the House Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions meeting on Jan. 15, 2025. (Mike Vanata for WyoFile)

Penn’s bill failed, but Rep. Gary Brown, R-Cheyenne, successfully brought back a similar measure this year. House Bill 164, “Medical prescriptions-off-label purposes,” codified the practice of prescribing off-label medications. But it specified those protections did not apply to schedule I or II controlled substances (such as heroin or fentanyl), gender care for children and medications intended to induce an abortion.

The most common regimen of those abortion medications includes the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol. Typically, a patient takes mifepristone first, then misoprostol one or two days later, according to medical providers cited in the plaintiff’s court documents. Both drugs are used off-label for abortion care in some circumstances.

Old case, new challenge

Wyoming’s lone abortion clinic — Casper’s Wellspring Health Access — and a group of abortion rights advocates are already suing to challenge two other laws from the 2025 legislative session. One added more stringent restrictions on abortion clinics, while a second required ultrasounds and a 48-hour waiting period.

In April, Judge Campbell blocked enforcement of those laws while the legal challenge proceeds. On Monday, both sides appeared virtually in Natrona County District Court to debate whether HB 164 should also be halted while the broader case plays out.

Wellspring Health Access is pictured in February 2025 in central Casper. The clinic provides abortion services. (Joshua Wolfson/WyoFile)

Like past court hearings, abortion rights advocates used a 2012 amendment to the Wyoming Constitution, which protects people’s rights to make their own health care decisions, to help make their case. That amendment allows the Legislature to determine “reasonable and necessary restrictions” when they protect general health and welfare, and was cited by Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens when she struck down a pair of 2023 abortion bans in November.

Exempting abortion medications from off-label protections is not reasonable or necessary for public health, and is therefore unconstitutional, plaintiff’s attorney Bethany Saul argued. Most abortions are performed with medications, and the evidence shows those drugs are safe and rarely produce serious complications.

And yet, health care providers who prescribe abortion drugs would be singled out by HB 164 and exempted from its protections without good reason, Saul told the court. If the law goes into effect as it’s now written, she added, providers may not prescribe the proper medications for their patients due to fears they might face future disciplinary actions from state licensing boards.

“This is not just a perceived risk,” she said. “We are facing a real risk.”

After receiving a ruling from District Court Judge Melissa Owens, Marci Bramlet, an attorney representing the plaintiffs suing the state, talks with plaintiffs Dr. Giovannina Anthony and Christine Lichtenfels on March 25 in district court in Jackson. (Kathryn Ziesig/Jackson Hole News&Guide/pool)

Senior Attorney General John Woykovsky defended the law, arguing the plaintiffs were misinterpreting HB 164. Brown, the bill’s chief sponsor, included the abortion medication exemption not as a backdoor attempt at banning the practice, but rather to align his legislation with the medication abortion ban passed by lawmakers in 2023.

That ban, while on hold, could go into effect if the Wyoming Supreme Court rules it constitutional. The state’s highest court heard arguments on that case in April and is expected to rule later this year. If the justices affirm a lower-court decision that the ban is unconstitutional, then the abortion medication exemption in HB 164 has no effect, Woykovsky argued. He disputed the idea that the new law would discourage providers from prescribing off-label use of the medications.

“As it stands now, there are no laws in place to prohibit the use of off-label drugs for abortions,” he said. “And there should be no chilling effect.”

Judge Campbell listened to about an hour of arguments from both sides. He did not rule at the hearing, but said he would issue a decision as soon as possible given the law will go into effect in just over a week.

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Wyoming

UNLV Holds on to Defeat Wyoming in 2026 CU1 MW Men’s Basketball Championship

Published

1 hour ago

March 12, 2026

Press Room

A thunderous comeback made for a thrilling opener of the opening game of the 2026 Credit Union 1 Mountain West Men’s Basketball Championship, but the No. 9 Wyoming Cowboys fell just short of the No. 8 UNLV Runnin’ Rebels, who held on to advance to the quarterfinals, 73-70.

UNLV got out to a 13-point lead by halftime thanks to a dismal shooting half by Wyoming, which shot 12-38 from the field and 2-17 from 3. Wyoming came roaring back in the second half and took the lead at one point, but the Runnin’ Rebels found a way.

“I thought our late-game execution, which has been pretty good for the most part for a lot of this year. We’ve won a lot of close games. We’re 3-0 in overtime. We’ve won a lot of close games, so our late-game execution really was at a high level,” UNLV coach Josh Pastner said. “Obviously, this isn’t a plays game. It’s a players’ game. The guys next to me (Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn and Kimani Hamilton) got the job done, made big shots, and that’s just the bottom line.”

Which was particularly impressive given UNLV star Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn went scoreless in the second period after dropping 15 points in the first. The scoring load and playmaking had to come from elsewhere after Wyoming guard Damarion Dennis locked Gibbs-Lawhorn down.

Down the stretch, that came mostly from Kimani Hamilton, who Gibbs-Lawhorn told to take over late.

A wild turnaround jumper by Hamilton, along with some massive free throws in the pressure cooker — including two with two seconds left to take an insurmountable three-point lead — kept UNLV just out of reach of Wyoming.

“Earlier in the year, things just happened to go my way, but there are multiple people on this team that can do the same thing, if not better than I can,” Gibbs-Lawson said. “When you have Kimani playing more than 30 minutes a game, it’s going to be hard to beat us with how locked in we’ve been defensively. Walter Brown, Tyrin Jones, they made some big plays, blocks and steals tonight.

“(If) We continue playing how we played defensively, then I think we have a good shot at this thing.”

But perhaps no play was bigger than Tyrin Jones’s final of six blocks on the night: up a point with less than 10 seconds left, Wyoming missed a jumper and got an offensive rebound. On the putback, Jones rose to the rafters for a block on Damarion Dennis, who had a double-double and led the comeback effort. In the moment, the crowd pleaded for a goaltending call, but he got to the ball just in time.

To go with seven points and five rebounds, his six blocks were tied for the fourth-most in an MW tournament game.

“I was debating if I could try to have him pump fake twice, but he got it up quick,” Jones said. “I got just enough and I was thankful to get it out of the sky, then it ended up in our hands. … I just knew my timing was going to be enough just to get it right at that top, peak moment.”

The Runnin’ Rebels will meet No. 1 Utah State in the quarterfinals on Thursday.

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Wyoming

Group asks judge to restore abortion rights, block Human Heartbeat Act

Published

14 hours ago

March 11, 2026

Press Room

Group asks judge to restore abortion rights, block Human Heartbeat Act

A group of abortion access advocates are asking the Natrona County District Court to block the Human Heartbeat Act. The law went into effect on March 9 and bans most abortions at six weeks.

That’s because cardiac activity can be detected with a transvaginal ultrasound at about six weeks — a time when abortion advocates say many people don’t know they’re pregnant yet.

The motion to the court states that the new law involves the same “fundamental problem” as other abortion-related laws already being considered by the court.

They are asking to add the law to an ongoing case over separate laws, which would require building renovations at abortion clinics and require transvaginal ultrasounds 48 hours before an abortion. Both of those laws have been temporarily blocked.

“[The Human Heartbeat Act] transgresses the constitutional guarantee of Plaintiffs’ and individuals’ to make health care decisions without interference from the government,” says the document filed on the afternoon of March 10 by Robinson Bramlet LLC.

Wyoming Public Radio obtained the filing from Chelsea’s Fund, an abortion-rights nonprofit and one of the plaintiffs in the case — part of the same group that has been challenging the state for years to protect abortion access.

They recently won their case in the Wyoming Supreme Court, when the majority of justices decided to strike down two near-total abortion laws enacted in 2024, saying they violated residents’ right to make their own healthcare decisions, which is specifically protected in the Wyoming Constitution.

The Legislature quickly got to work on more anti-abortion legislation, such as the Human Heartbeat Act, which Gov. Mark Gordon signed on March 9. It carries an exception for cases where the health of the mother is in jeopardy, but not for rape or incest victims, which Gordon called an “unfortunate flaw.”

Chelsea’s Fund Executive Director Janean Forsyth said she was disappointed the state again restricted access to “vital care.”

“I’m thinking about everyone from the 15 year old that we supported, whose grandmother actually reached out, a victim of sexual assault,” Forsyth said. “I’m thinking about a family with a very wanted pregnancy that we supported in eventually seeking an abortion for a severe fetal anomaly.”

Forsyth added that abortion laws like this result in medical providers leaving the state.

“So it’s not only affecting access to abortion care, it’s affecting reproductive healthcare access generally for parents and children, which is really unfortunate,” she said.

Wellspring Health Access in Casper, the state’s only abortion clinic, is cancelling appointments with patients seeking to end their pregnancies later in their term, according to Executive Director Katie Knutter.

Speaker of the House Chip Neiman (R-Hulett) sponsored the law. He said he wasn’t surprised it was met with legal action, as that’s been the trend in recent years.

“I think we’re in a good spot,” Neiman said in a voicemail to Wyoming Public Radio after the lawsuit was filed. “And we’re going to move ahead and the people of the Legislature, Wyoming has spoken.”

Lawmakers decided against putting the issue directly before Wyoming voters as a constitutional amendment this fall. That’s after Gordon urged them to do so to end the legal cycle.

Neiman couldn’t be reached by publication time to comment on the decision to not pursue a constitutional amendment, but in a Jan. 26 town hall, he expressed worries that voters could codify the right to abortion.

In 2024, 64% of Nevada voters supported enshrining the right into the state constitution. A majority will have to vote in favor again later this year to recognize the right.

In his voicemail, Neiman added, “There’s folks out there that are completely good with killing kids, killing babies in the womb, and there’s other folks out here like the Legislature that are fighting desperately to preserve their lives.”

The abortion-rights group said it will ask the court to issue a temporary restraining order and block the new law while the legal challenge proceeds.

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Wyoming

Wyoming Coaches Pick the Best of 1A & 2A Boys Basketball in 2026

Published

1 day ago

March 11, 2026

Press Room

Wyoming Coaches Pick the Best of 1A & 2A Boys Basketball in 2026

The top boys’ basketball players in Wyoming for Classes 1A and 2A were chosen for the 2026 high school season. The Wyoming Coaches Association has unveiled the all-state awards for this year, as voted on by the head coaches in the two classifications, respectively. The Wyoming Coaches Association only recognizes one team for all-state, and only these players receive an award certificate from the WCA. WyoPreps only lists all-state players as defined by the WCA.

WCA 1A-2A BOYS BASKETBALL ALL-STATE SELECTIONS IN 2026

Each class selected 14 players for all-state, reflecting a broad recognition of talent across Wyoming. Notably, congratulations go to Hulett’s Kyle Smith, Brady Cook from Lingle-Fort Laramie, and Carsten Freeburg from Pine Bluffs, who earned all-state honors for the third straight year. In addition, eight more players achieved all-state status for the second time in their prep careers.

Class 1A

Paul McNiven – Burlington

Bitner Philpott – Burlington

Ammon Hatch – Cokeville (All-State in 2025)

Hudson Himmerich – Cokeville

Kyle Smith – Hulett (All-State 2024 & 2025)

Anthony Arnusch – Lingle-Ft. Laramie

Brady Cook – Lingle-Ft. Laramie (All-State 2024 & 2025)

Tymber Cozzens – Little Snake River (All-State in 2025)

Corbin Matthews – Lusk

Max Potas – Meeteetse (All-State in 2024)

Jace Westring – Saratoga

Hazen Williams – Saratoga

TJ Moats – Southeast (All-State in 2024)

Nic Schiller – Upton

Read More Boys Basketball News from WyoPreps

WyoPreps 1A-2A State Basketball Scoreboard 2026

WyoPreps 3A-4A Regional Basketball Scoreboard 2026

WyoPreps Coaches and Media Final Basketball Poll 2026

1A-2A Boys Basketball Regional Scoreboard 2026

WyoPreps Boys Basketball Week 11 Scores 2026

WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Polls 2-25-26

WyoPreps Boys Basketball Week 10 Scores 2026

WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Polls 2-18-26

WyoPreps Boys Basketball Week 9 Scores 2026

WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Polls 2-11-26

WyoPreps Boys Basketball Week 8 Scores 2026

WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Polls 2-4-26

Class 2A

Caleb Adsit – Big Horn

Chase Garber – Big Horn

Carsten Freeburg – Pine Bluffs (All-State 2024 & 2025)

Mason Moss – Rocky Mountain

Oakley Hicks – Shoshoni

Kade Mills – Sundance

Cody Bomengen – Thermopolis (All-State in 2025)

Zak Hastie – Thermopolis

Ellis Webber – Thermopolis (All-State in 2025)

Joseph Kimbrell – Wright

Mitchell Strohschein – Wright (All-State in 2025)

Adriano Brown – Wyoming Indian

Heeyei’Niitou Monroe-Black – Wyoming Indian (All-State in 2025)

Cordell Spoonhunter – Wyoming Indian

The 2026 state champions were the Saratoga Panthers in Class 1A. They beat Lingle-Fort Laramie, 50-45, in the championship game. The 2A winners were the Thermopolis Bobcats, who repeated as champions, after a 45-38 victory over Wyoming Indian in the title game.