Wyoming is first state to explicitly ban abortion pills

Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon has signed into law the nation’s first explicit ban on abortion pills since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer.

Gordon, a Republican, signed the bill Friday night while allowing a separate measure restricting abortion to become law without his signature.

The pills are already banned in 13 states that have blanket bans on all forms of abortion, and 15 states already have limited access to abortion pills. Until now, however, no state had passed a law specifically prohibiting such pills, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

A group seeking to open an abortion and women’s health clinic in Casper said it was evaluating legal options.

“We are dismayed and outraged that these laws would eradicate access to basic health care, including safe, effective medication abortion,” Wellspring Health Access President Julie Burkhart said in a statement Saturday.

The clinic, which a firebombing prevented from opening last year, is one of two nonprofits suing to block an earlier Wyoming abortion ban. No arrests have been made, and organizers say the clinic is tentatively scheduled to open in April, depending on abortion’s legal status in Wyoming then.

The Republican governor’s decision on the two measures comes after the issue of access to abortion pills took center stage this week in a Texas court. A federal judge there raised questions about a Christian group’s effort to overturn the decadesold U.S. approval of a leading abortion drug, mifepristone.

Medication abortions became the preferred method for ending pregnancy in the U.S. even before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the ruling that protected the right to abortion for nearly five decades. A two-pill combination of mifepristone and another drug is the most common form of abortion in the U.S.

Wyoming’s ban on abortion pills would take effect in July, pending any legal action that could potentially delay that. The implementation date of the sweeping legislation banning all abortions that Gordon allowed to go into law is not specified in the bill.

Michael Cummo/Associated Press 2021 Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon signed a bill Friday night to ban abortion pills, the first such ban since Roe v. Wade’s overturning.