Wyoming
Wyoming Republicans’ anti-abortion bill inadvertently targets chemotherapy and surgeries
In an effort to restrict abortion access, Wyoming Republicans authored a bill that could choke access to a host of life-saving medical procedures, from chemotherapy to heart surgery.
State judge Melissa Owens overturned Wyoming’s abortion bans in November 2024, citing the state’s constitutionally guaranteed right to healthcare. The Republican state senator Cheri Steinmetz and the bill’s eight co-sponsors took issue with the ruling, and sought to draw up a definition of healthcare that excludes abortion.
“The intent of [Senate File] 125 is to do no harm and go back to that Hippocratic oath and look at healthcare through that lens,” Steinmeitz told the Guardian.
Steinmetz says Senate File 125 offers a new definition of healthcare in Wyoming: “No act, treatment or procedure that causes harm to the heart, respiratory system, central nervous system, brain, skeletal system, jointed or muscled appendages or organ function shall be construed as healthcare.”
The bill carves out exceptions – for example, when such a procedure is required to save the life of a pregnant woman, or if “a person has no chance of meaningful recovery” without it. Fetal personhood is still on the books in Wyoming from 2023’s overturned “Life Is a Human Right Act”, but experts interviewed said that the murkiness of the bill’s language made it unclear if it would succeed at restricting abortion access – its intended purpose.
But Wyoming attorneys and healthcare law professionals at Boston University, George Washington University, Johns Hopkins and Pittsburgh University, say the problem is that a broad swath of healthcare procedures can be considered to cause “harm” by design.
“There’s a slew of medical procedures, surgeries, treatments that can have potentially positive outcomes but may also cause harm in the short period or as an unintended consequence,” the Wyoming attorney Abigail Fournier said.
“It’s scary to me, because I think it could be interpreted to be very limiting in terms of what healthcare providers can do.”
Wyoming’s constitutional right to healthcare stems from a 2012, voter-ratified constitutional amendment stating that “the right to make healthcare decisions is reserved to the citizens of the state of Wyoming”. Tom Lubnau, Wyoming attorney and former Republican speaker of the state house, helped author the amendment. He sees much of the current legislature as having “tunnel vision”, and a fixation on passing social issue legislation that ignores constitutionality.
“Healthcare decisions are the individual’s in Wyoming. And that’s what the freedom amendment says,” Lubnau said. “Butt out of my decisions, and let me take care of myself.”
Lubnau sits on one side of Wyoming’s gaping Republican divide, which pits an older class of more moderate, establishment Republicans against the state’s further-right Freedom Caucus, who, this past election cycle, became the first Freedom Caucus chapter to take control of a state house.
The Freedom Caucus has wasted no time in pushing a mass of social issue bills that line up neatly with national conservative talking points. Among the focuses are dismantling DEI programming, strict definitions of gender, immigration restrictions and a glut of abortion restrictions.
The Boston University healthcare law professor Nicole Huberfeld has seen plenty of crafty attempts to restrict abortion access, such as transvaginal ultrasound requirements, or laws mandating abortion clinics meet the licensing requirements of ambulatory surgical centers.
But Huberfeld and other experts interviewed said that they had yet to encounter a bill looking to redefine healthcare entirely.
Huberfeld will not be surprised if other states follow Wyoming’s lead, particularly those that have constitutional rights to healthcare.
“If they don’t have bills like this, I expect that they will take a page from Wyoming’s book and try the same thing,” Huberfeld said.
The George Washington University law professor Sonia Suter said the bill fit into a broader trend of taking away authority from medical professionals and putting it into the hands of politicians.
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“There’s a lot less faith in professional expertise, scientists, medicine,” Suter said. “Legislators are coming in and trying to pass laws that are less about healthcare and more about some kind of moral agenda, religious agenda. This is a way to sort of give the legislature more power.”
When asked if any doctors or medical professionals were consulted in the authoring of the bill, Steinmetz said that she received the bill from an attorney, and was not sure who the attorney sourced input from. She said that the bills’ sponsors were aware of concerns about chemotherapy and other procedures – and that they would sort it out if the bill moved forward.
“We have the best of intentions, and sometimes bills start out a little rockier than others,” Steinmetz said.
Joanne Rosen, health law professor at Johns Hopkins University, is less worried with the intentions behind the bill, and more so with the effects of bills that seek to carve out abortion – and end up affecting less “controversial” forms of healthcare.
“It has the effect of chilling physicians from administering medical treatment because they worry they may be in violation of the law. That’s a significant concern,” Rosen said.
While attorneys interviewed confirmed that voter referendums are necessary to make changes to Wyoming’s constitution, Steinmetz said that the bill did not seek to change the constitution – just a definition.
“Obviously it’s not spelled out in the constitution that abortion is healthcare, and so we can put limitations on that,” Steinmeitz said.
Still, Clark Stith, Wyoming attorney and former Republican state speaker pro tempore, is not sold.
“This bill, which purports to provide rules of construction of the Wyoming constitution, simply can’t do that,” Stith said. “A statute cannot change the meaning of words in the constitution. Period. End of story.”
Stith also wondered why, if abortion is such a central priority, politicians put the abortion question in the hands of Wyoming’s voters.
“Why aren’t you bringing it as a proposed constitutional amendment?” Stith asked. “Why aren’t you bringing it as a joining resolution to get placed on the ballot?”
CASPER, Wyo. — High school athletics in Wyoming could see some drastic changes in the coming years following legislative changes to the state’s education budget, the Wyoming High School Activities Association recently announced in a statement.
According to the WHSAA, Wyoming school districts are facing a projected $3.9 million shortfall in activities funding, forcing officials to consider significant cuts to high school sports and extracurricular programs.
The WHSAA shared details regarding a new “silo” funding model implemented by the Legislature, stating that the recalibrated block grant model reduced funding for student activities and extra-duty responsibilities from $46.3 million to $42.4 million, an approximately 8.4% decrease statewide.
WHSAA Commissioner Trevor Wilson said the restructuring also restricts district access to an additional $76.2 million in previously flexible funding.
“A significant portion of the [April 28 WHSAA Board of Directors] meeting was dedicated to discussing the projected funding shortfall,” Wilson wrote.
The WHSAA is weighing several strategies to address rising costs with fewer resources. Proposed changes include eliminating regional tournaments and reducing the number of teams qualifying for state events from eight to four; limiting wrestling to two classes and restricting track and field state participants to the top 16 marks; making cuts to soccer, indoor track and field, Nordic and Alpine skiing, swimming and diving, spring golf and tennis; and reducing in-person speech and debate events by half and centrally locating All-State Music events to minimize travel. The board also recommended increasing gate admission or implementing student participation fees to offset costs.
While the WHSAA release states that no plans have been finalized and the various changes are currently just possibilities, Natrona County School District 1 Board of Trustees member Mary Schmidt criticized the WHSAA’s handling of the news at Monday’s board meeting.
“I take some issues with this, [including] the sheer fact that we as Board of Trustees members have not talked about that at all,” Schmidt said. “It is not our intent and it has not been brought to us to cut our athletics or activities budget for the upcoming school year. … I take issue with them picking sports and getting the community upset and ginning them up to be upset that this is all going to be cut when that hasn’t been discussed.”
Later in the meeting, Superintendent Angela Hensley clarified that Natrona County School District 1’s athletics and activities budget saw a reduction of roughly $550,000 in the coming year’s budget, but said the local school district does not plan to cut any sports.
“Thank you, Trustee Schmidt, for saying this, because I think people are wondering — we are not planning to cut athletics and activities for next year,” Hensley said. “We do have to take a look at our entire budget as we have talked about, as we learn more about these new rules that come in.”
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Republished with permission from Wyoming News Now, a TV news outlet covering the Cheyenne and Casper areas.
Cheyenne City Council has introduced a temporary moratorium, or pause, on new data center construction.
“The end goal is to actually have regulations in place, to have really heavy public involvement with this with data centers,” said Councilman Mark Moody.
The proposed ordinance is not a permanent ban on data centers and would not affect data centers currently under construction.
Councilman Moody says this is a bipartisan issue.
“I just want to make this clear, I’m not against data centers. We do need them from a national security perspective,” he said.
He said there needs to be more public input and regulations regarding data centers in Cheyenne.
The ordinance would require city staff to study data center impacts such as electricity usage, electricity tariffs, closed-loop cooling systems, groundwater impacts, agricultural impacts, and land value.
Cheyenne LEADS, the economic development corporation for Cheyenne and Laramie County, reported in November 2025 that there are 12 operational data centers in Wyoming, five under construction and plans for 43 data centers announced across the state.
“There needs to be more public input with this, and also to see how many we can sustain here in this community, cause there are talks of 43, and then another day 70. How many can we sustain here?” said Councilman Moody.
The proposed moratorium will now go to the Public Services Committee on Monday, May 18 at noon in the Municipal Building.
Sheridan will play in the North Regional Tournament at Gillette, while the South Regional Tournament will be played at Rock Springs.
North Regional Tournament at Gillette:
Checking record vs. highest team in the quadrant not involved in the tie, Thunder Basin gets the #1 Northeast seed over Campbell County, because the Lady Bolts went 3-1 vs. Sheridan, whereas the Lady Camels went 2-2.
Friday, May 15th:
(#1 NE) Thunder Basin vs. (#4 NW) Jackson – 11am
(#2 NW) Natrona County vs. (#3 NE) Sheridan – 11am
(#2 NE) Campbell County vs. (#3 NW) Kelly Walsh – 1pm
(#1 NW) Cody vs. (#4 NE) Worland – 1pm
Semi-Finals:
Thunder Basin/Jackson winner vs. Natrona County/Sheridan winner – 3pm Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
Campbell County/Kelly Walsh winner vs. Cody/Worland winner – 5pm Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
Consolation Round:
Thunder Basin/Jackson loser vs. Natrona County/Sheridan loser – 3pm LOSER OUT!
Campbell County/Kelly Walsh loser vs. Cody/Worland loser – 5pm LOSER OUT!
Saturday, May 16th:
TBA vs. TBA – 10am LOSER OUT! Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
TBA vs. TBA – 10am LOSER OUT! Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
2 10am winners vs. each other – 1pm 3rd Place
TBA vs. TBA – 1pm 1st Place
South Regional Tournament at Rock Springs:
Friday, May 15th:
(#1 SW) Laramie vs. (#4 SE) Torrington – 11am
(#2 SE) Cheyenne East vs. (#3 SW) Green River – 11am
(#2 SW) Rock Springs vs. (#3 SE) Wheatland – 1pm
(#1 SE) Cheyenne Central vs. (#4 SW) Cheyenne South – 1pm
Semi-Finals:
Laramie/Torrington winner vs. Cheyenne East/Green River winner – 3pm Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
Rock Springs/Wheatland winner vs. Cheyenne Central/Cheyenne South winner – 5pm Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
Consolation Round:
Laramie/Torrington loser vs. Cheyenne East/Green River loser – 3pm LOSER OUT!
Rock Springs/Wheatland loser vs. Cheyenne Central/Cheyenne South loser – 5pm LOSER OUT!
Saturday, May 16th:
TBA vs. TBA – 10am LOSER OUT! Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
TBA vs. TBA – 10am LOSER OUT! Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
2 10am winners vs. each other – 1pm 3rd Place
TBA vs. TBA – 1pm 1st Place
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