Wyoming law banning abortion pill blocked
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Abortion pills will remain legal in Wyoming for now, after a judge ruled Thursday that the state's first-in-the-nation law to ban them won't take effect July 1 as planned while a lawsuit proceeds.
Attorneys for Wyoming failed to show that allowing the ban to take effect on schedule wouldn't harm the lawsuit's plaintiffs before their case is resolved, Teton County Judge Melissa Owens ruled after hearing arguments from both sides.
Meanwhile, those plaintiffs “have clearly showed probable success on the merits,” Owens said in granting their request to temporarily block the pill ban.
While other states have instituted de facto bans on the medication by broadly prohibiting abortion, Wyoming in March became the first U.S. state to specifically ban abortion pills.
Two nonprofit organizations, including an abortion clinic that opened in Casper in April, and four women, including two obstetricians, have sued to challenge the law. They asked Owens to suspend the ban while their lawsuit plays out.
The plaintiffs are also suing to stop a near-total ban on abortion enacted in Wyoming in March. Owens has suspended that law, too, and combined the two lawsuits.
Because abortion remains legal in Wyoming, banning abortion pills would require women to get more invasive surgical abortions instead, Marci Bramlet, an attorney for the ban opponents, told Owens in Thursday's hearing.
“It effectively tells people you must have open-heart surgery when a stent would do,” Bramlet said.
A state constitutional amendment enacted in 2012 also came into play in court arguments. The amendment passed in response to a new federal health care law, the Affordable Care Act, says Wyoming residents have the right to make their own health care decisions.
Wyoming's new abortion laws allow exceptions to save life and for cases of rape or incest that are reported to police. But abortion for other reasons isn't health care under the amendment, Jay Jerde, an attorney for the state, argued.
“It's not restoring a woman's body from pain, injury or physical sickness,” Jerde said. “Medical services are involved, but getting an abortion for reasons other than health care, it can't be a medical decision.”
Pregnancy involves pain and sickness, Owens pointed out. But women don't get abortions for that reason, countered Jerde.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs later questioned how the state could know the motives of women getting abortions.
Wyoming's new laws were enacted after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade last year. Since then, some 25 million women and teenagers have been subjected to either stricter controls on ending their pregnancies or almost total bans on the procedure.