Wyoming’s harsh abortion bans have been overturned, including its first-in-the-nation law explicitly prohibiting abortion medication.
While other states’ abortion bans effectively outlaw the use of medication, Wyoming’s 2023 law specifically targeted abortion pills, making it a felony to prescribe, sell, or use “any drug for the purpose of procuring or performing an abortion.”
The state’s general abortion ban prohibited abortion at any stage with limited exceptions for incest, sexual assault, or cases when the pregnant person’s life is in danger, threatening penalties of up to five years in prison and a $20,000 fine
Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens struck both laws down on Monday, marking the third time she has ruled against them in a legal battle that began in 2022. Owens ruled that the laws violated women’s rights by harming their health, well-being and livelihoods, while also violating a 2012 state constitutional amendment that solidified Wyoming residents’ right to make their own health care decisions. The state had attempted to argue that abortion is somehow not health care.
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,” Owes wrote in her decision, via The Associated Press.
Wyoming is the second state to have its near-total abortion ban overturned this month, as Missouri voters approved a constitutional amendment a few weeks ago that enshrined abortion protections in their state constitution, becoming the first state to overturn an abortion ban through a referendum. Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, and New York also approved amendments protecting the right to an abortion.
A lawsuit seeking to challenge the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of abortion medication recently failed when the Supreme Court refused to hear it, allowing the pills to still be distributed by mail to patients without an in-person doctor’s visit.
