CHEYENNE, Wyo. — A state judge on Monday struck down Wyoming's blanket abortion ban and the nation's first explicit ban on the use of medication to terminate pregnancies, in step with voters in additional states who’ve come out in support of abortion rights.
Since 2022, Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens has ruled thrice to dam the laws while they’re being challenged in court.
The decision represents one other victory for abortion rights advocates after voters in seven states passed measures supporting access.
A Wyoming law that Owens says violates women's rights under the state structure bans abortions except to guard the lifetime of a pregnant woman or in cases of rape and incest. The other made Wyoming the one state to explicitly ban abortion pills, although other states have implemented de facto bans on the drug by broadly banning abortions.
The laws were challenged by 4 women, including two obstetricians, and two nonprofit organizations. One of the groups, Wellspring Health Access, opened in April 2023 after an arson attack in 2022 because the state's first full-service abortion clinic in years.
“This is a wonderful day for the citizens of Wyoming – and for women everywhere who should have control over their own bodies,” Julie Burkhart, president of Wellspring Health Access, said in a press release.
In recent elections, Missouri voters cleared the solution to repeal one in all the country's most restrictive abortion bans in a series of victories for abortion rights advocates. Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota, meanwhile, rejected similar constitutional amendments and left the bans in place.
Abortion law changes also passed in Arizona, Colorado, Maryland and Montana. Nevada voters also approved an amendment supporting abortion rights, but must pass it again in 2026 for it to take effect. In New York, a special law prevailed that prohibits discrimination based on “pregnancy outcomes.”
The abortion landscape saw a monumental shift in 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. Wade overturned, a ruling that ended a nationwide right to abortion and paved the best way for bans to take effect in most Republican-controlled states.
Currently, 13 states implement abortion bans in any respect stages of pregnancy, with few exceptions, and 4 have bans that go into effect across the sixth week of pregnancy — often before women realize they’re pregnant.
Almost every ban was challenged with a lawsuit. Courts have blocked enforcement of some restrictions, including pregnancy bans in Utah and Wyoming. Judges lifted bans in Georgia and North Dakota in September 2024. The Georgia Supreme Court ruled the next month that the ban may very well be enforced there while the case was still under review.
In the Wyoming case, the ladies and nonprofits difficult the laws argued that the bans would endanger their health, well-being and livelihoods — claims that were disputed by prosecutors. They also argued that the bans violated a 2012 state constitutional amendment that claims competent Wyoming residents have the precise to make their very own health care decisions.
As with previous rulings, Owens found each arguments to be valid. The abortion bans “will undermine the integrity of the medical profession by impairing the ability of physicians to provide evidence-based medicines to their patients,” Owens ruled.
Voters in Wyoming approved the change because they feared the federal government would go too far after passing the federal Affordable Care Act and its initial medical health insurance requirements.
Prosecutors argued that health care under the change didn’t include abortion. Republican Gov. Mark Gordon, whose administration has defended the laws passed in 2022 and 2023, didn’t immediately respond via email Monday searching for comment.
Both sides wanted Owens to rule on the abortion ban lawsuit as a substitute of allowing the trial to happen within the spring. A 3-day trial before Owens had already been scheduled, but won’t be crucial with this ruling.
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