Wyoming’s Republican-dominated legislature passed a six-week abortion ban this week, prompting a new lawsuit and some lawmakers to call it “an insult to voters and our institution”.

Mark Gordon, Wyoming’s governor, signed the bill while simultaneously warning of its constitutional hurdles, noting that prior abortion bans were struck down by the state’s all Republican-appointed supreme court this January. Almost immediately, an identical set of plaintiffs filed suit against the new bill.

This bill effectively makes abortion illegal after six weeks of pregnancy, a time when many women have not yet learned that they are pregnant. Any person violating the law would face a felony punishable by prison sentence of up to five years.

Earlier abortion bans, including the US’s first proposed ban on abortion pills, were previously tossed out by the Wyoming supreme court – which cited Wyoming’s constitutional guarantee that adults can make their own healthcare decisions. Democratic representative Mike Yin views this now annual cycle of abortion bans as “both an insult to voters and our institution”, and doesn’t think the new bill holds much water.

Yin said: “I don’t see why the court would see this ban any different than a full ban.”

The bill’s main sponsor, Republican speaker of the house Chip Neiman, said on the house floor that he was not troubled by the bill’s legal complications. Instead, he argued that legislators had a moral obligation to further anti-abortion legislation.

“I know a lot of folks get out there and get all shook up about how we’re creating legislation that gets tied up in court,” Neiman said. “But I’ll tell you what, the only person that gets broke down is the person that doesn’t do anything.”

Neiman did not respond to requests for comment from the Guardian.

The legislate-then-litigate cycle is extensive enough that the new challenge has been filed as an amendment to an ongoing suit against prior abortion bans. Katie Knutter, executive director at Wellspring Health Access, one of the plaintiffs and the state’s only functioning procedural abortion clinic, noted that the bill will pause services at her clinic. She also said that between a previous legislative pause and the clinic surviving an arson attack, Wellspring is used to navigating chaos.

“This is what happens when you fight for abortion care in more politically conservative, hostile-to-abortion-access states,” Knutter said, adding that given Wyoming’s vast rural geography, their average patient travels 250 miles to receive care, and roughly a third are from out of state.

Kimya Forouzan, principal state policy advisor at the Guttmacher Institute, pointed out that the bill’s use of fetal personhood, the belief that embryos and fetuses deserve the legal rights and protection afforded to people, matches national trends.

“We really have seen it come up more and more, and be tied very directly towards criminal penalties,” Forouzan said.

The Wyoming legislature’s annual mill of abortion bills has seen state politicians follow a plethora of other legislative trends. This includes a bill currently held up in court, mandating a transvaginal ultrasound and a 48-hour waiting period; another would require prohibitively expensive retrofitting or relocations of abortion clinics to meet the requirements of ambulatory surgery centers.

The state’s constitutional right to individual healthcare decisions, and the courts’ interpretation of it, has been a thorn in the side of this legislation. A failed 2025 bill that sought to redefine healthcare, and if passed as originally written, would have outlawed chemotherapy.

Republican representative Rachel Rodriguez-Williams, frustrated with the supreme court’s abortion ruling, unsuccessfully tried to block additional security funding for courts across the state.

“If this branch of government has a vested interest in protecting your life, why does it suddenly lose that interest when the life in question comes to the unborn?” Rodriguez-Williams said on the house floor. Rodriguez-Williams, who is also chair of the Wyoming Freedom caucus, did not respond to a request for comment.

There is one path that could put an end to the back-and-forth between the judicial and legislative branches – drafting a constitutional amendment, and putting it as an election year ballot for voters to decide. Data from the University of Wyoming suggested that Wyoming voters might be more friendly to abortion than its legislators. The 2026 legislature saw one failed attempt to do so, but without mentioning abortion. Instead, it floated a measure that would let the legislature determine the definition of healthcare.

Republican representative Daniel Singh, one of the heartbeat bill’s co-sponsors, has grown weary of this fight. He hopes for a future amendment so that the abortion issue will be settled, once and for all, by Wyoming voters.

“I’m more of a trap shooter and not a tennis player,” Singh said. “And so I’d like to just get this thing finished and sorted out.”