The Wyoming Supreme Court on Jan. 6 found that two state laws restricting abortion — including the first state law to specifically ban chemical or medication abortions — violated the state’s constitution and could not be enforced.
The decision keeps abortion legal in the state after its lone abortion clinic challenged those laws.
Wyoming enacted a near-total abortion ban in March 2023 and saw a preexisting ban that took effect after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling in 2022, which overturned its previous abortion precedent in Roe v. Wade.
However, a 2012 amendment Wyoming adopted in its state constitution in protest of then-President Barack Obama’s signature health law, the Affordable Care Act, sometimes called Obamacare, stated that adults have a right to make their own health care decisions. Lower courts have previously found that language ran afoul of the abortion restrictions, an interpretation the state’s highest court also reached.
“In deciding what that language means in this case, all five Wyoming Supreme Court justices agreed that the decision whether to terminate or continue a pregnancy is a woman’s own health care decision protected by” that amendment, the high court’s summary of their own decision said.
Wellspring Health Access in Casper, Wyoming, among others, challenged the state bans citing that amendment.
OSV News reached out to the Diocese of Cheyenne, which covers the state of Wyoming, for comment.
The Catholic Church teaches that all human life is sacred from conception to natural death, and therefore opposes direct abortion. After the Dobbs decision, church officials in the United States both reiterated the church’s concern for both mother and child and called to strengthen support for those living in poverty or other causes that can push women toward having an abortion.
Previously, Judge Melissa Owens of Teton County District Court found in 2024 that the state’s abortion bans violated the state’s constitution.
In a statement, Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, a Republican, called the ruling “profoundly unfortunate” and argued it “only serves to prolong the ultimate and proper resolution of this issue.”
“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,” he said. “It is time for this issue to go before the people for a vote, and I believe it should go before them this fall. A constitutional amendment taken to the people of Wyoming would trump any and all judicial decisions.”
Gordon called on the Legislature to enact legislation in the upcoming budget session that would put a constitutional amendment before the voters.
“I remain committed to the mission of saving our unborn,” he said. “Every year that we delay the proper resolution of this issue results in more deaths of unborn children. This is a dilemma of enormous moral and social consequence.”
