The laws violate the state constitution, which protects individuals’ rights to make their own health care decisions, Judge Melissa Owens con
Joshua Wolfson, Madelyn Beck, and Maggie Mullen at WyoFile:
A Teton County judge on Monday struck down Wyoming’s two abortion bans, ruling they violate the state constitution. The decision by Judge Melissa Owens keeps most abortions legal in the state. She concluded a near-total ban on abortion and a prohibition against abortion medications — laws that were passed by state legislators in 2023 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade — conflicted with a 2012 constitutional amendment that protects individuals’ rights to make their own health care decisions. “The Defendants have not established a compelling governmental interest to exclude pregnant women from fully realizing the protections afforded by the Wyoming Constitution during the entire term of their pregnancies, nor have the Defendants established that the Abortion Statutes accomplish their interest,” Owens wrote. “The Court concludes that the Abortion Statutes suspend a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions during the entire term of a pregnancy and are not reasonable or necessary to protect the health and general welfare of the people.”
Owens put the bans on hold last year while considering the arguments for and against their constitutionality. The bans were challenged by a group of women, health care providers and an aid group who asserted the laws violated a dozen provisions of the Wyoming Constitution. In Monday’s ruling, Owens honed in on the 2012 provision pertaining to health care autonomy. While the state of Wyoming, which defended the laws, asserted an abortion does not constitute a woman’s “health care decision” since it affects both the woman and the fetus. The judge disagreed. “The Health Care Amendment does not prohibit a person from making their own health care decision if their decision impacts any other person,” she wrote. “As the Plaintiffs argued, only a pregnant woman can make a decision to have an abortion. No other person can make that decision for a competent pregnant woman. To adopt Defendants’ argument the Court would have to rewrite the Health Care Amendment.”
The case is expected to be appealed to the Wyoming Supreme Court. In the meantime, two medical providers in Wyoming — one in Jackson and one in Casper — continue to offer abortion services. An arsonist set fire to the Casper clinic in 2022, delaying its opening.
[...] Those included the near-total abortion ban, House Bill 152 – Life is a Human Right Act, and a ban on using medications to induce abortion called Senate File 109 – Prohibiting chemical abortions. Both of them passed the Legislature, though Gordon only signed the latter, simply letting the former go into effect without his signature.
Wyoming’s pair of abortion bans got struck down by Judge Melissa Owens, thanks to a 2012 referendum at the peak of anti-Obamacare backlash.
See Also:
AP, via HuffPost: Judge Strikes Down Wyoming Laws Banning Abortion, Abortion Pills
