Abortion pill ban is unconstitutional, Wyoming’s top court rules
The Wyoming Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down the state’s near-total abortion ban and a first-of-its-kind prohibition on abortion pills, saying that the laws violated the state constitution.
In 2023, the year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Wyoming passed an abortion ban that included narrow exceptions for incest, sexual assault and cases where the mother’s health is at risk. Later that year, it became the first state in the country to explicitly outlaw abortion pills, setting fines and prison time for anyone found prescribing the drugs for an abortion.
But abortion remained legal in the red state because the bans were blocked in court as legal challenges played out. In the case decided Tuesday, Wyoming’s Supreme Court weighed whether the two 2023 laws violated a woman’s right to make her own health care choices as guaranteed in the state constitution.
The state argued that the laws did not violate that right because abortion is not health care. Even if it were, the state argued, the procedure could not be considered a woman’s own decision because it ended the life of the fetus.
The Wyoming Supreme Court disagreed.
“Although a woman’s decision to have an abortion ends the fetal life, the decision is, nevertheless, one she makes concerning her own health care,” Wyoming Chief Justice Lynne Boomgaarden wrote in the court’s ruling.
Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon (R), who signed both of the contested abortion laws, derided the court’s decision. He pressed Wyoming’s Republican-led legislature to pass a constitutional amendment on abortion as soon as possible.
If the legislature passed such an amendment, it would then go before voters during the 2026 election.
“This ruling is profoundly unfortunate and sadly only serves to prolong the ultimate and proper resolution of this issue,” Gordon said in a statement. “This ruling may settle, for now, a legal question, but it does not settle the moral one, nor does it reflect where many Wyoming citizens stand, including myself.”
The state’s attorney who argued before the Wyoming Supreme Court did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Because the ruling was based on Wyoming’s state constitution, it does not have legal implications for abortion access in other states. Twenty-seven states restrict abortion pills in some way, and more than a dozen largely ban medication abortion. Nevertheless, use of the pills has surged in the post-Roe era, with patients now able to legally access the drugs by mail and from providers in other states.
The case decided Tuesday was brought by Wyoming’s lone abortion clinic, a nonprofit in the state that helps fund abortion services, and a group of women who live there.
When it opened in 2023 in Casper, the clinic, Wellspring Health Access, became a focal point for abortion care in Wyoming. The only other abortion provider in the Wyoming - Giovannina Anthony, a gynecologist who was also a plaintiff in the case - is based hundreds of miles away and only offers medication abortions. And neighboring states such as Idaho, Nebraska and South Dakota offer scant or no abortion services.
The Wellspring clinic’s president, Julie Burkhart, decided to found it in 2021 after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case that ultimately led to the fall of Roe. When that time came, she said she knew that she would have only two options to move forward: Go to court or roll up the carpet.
She chose court.
During the yearslong legal battle, Wellspring’s patients were always on Burkhart’s mind. Since 2023, women have called from near and far, including Texas, Louisiana, Georgia and Florida - Southern states with some of the country’s most severe abortion bans - to schedule appointments, Burkhart said.
“We hope with the decision that was handed down today, which was just a wonderfully written decision, that legislators will think twice before spending time to pass bills that wouldn’t hold muster,” she said. “But that is something we expect could happen.”
Janean Forsyth, the executive director of Chelsea’s Fund, a Wyoming nonprofit plaintiff that helps women with the costs to get abortions, celebrated Tuesday’s decision.
Even with the procedure legal, Forsyth said women who came to Chelsea’s Fund most often asked: “Can I even get an abortion in Wyoming?”
Tuesday’s ruling, she said, will help clear that up.
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