CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) – A state judge on Monday struck down Wyoming’s blanket abortion ban and the nation’s first explicit ban on the employ of drugs to terminate pregnancies, in line with voters in even more states that have backed abortion rights.
Since 2022, Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens has ruled three times to block the laws while they are being challenged in court.
The decision represents another victory for abortion rights advocates after voters in seven states passed measures supporting access.
A Wyoming law that Owens says violates women’s rights under the state constitution bans abortions except to protect the life of a pregnant woman or in cases of rape and incest. The other made Wyoming the only state to explicitly ban abortion pills, although other states have implemented de facto bans on the drug by broadly banning abortions.
The laws were challenged by four women, including two obstetricians, and two nonprofit organizations. One of the groups, Wellspring Health Access, opened in April 2023 as the state’s first full-service abortion clinic in years after an arson attack in 2022.
“This is a wonderful day for the citizens of Wyoming – and for women everywhere who should have control over their own bodies,” Julie Burkhart, president of Wellspring Health Access, said in a statement.
In recent elections, Missouri voters cleared the way to repeal one of the country’s most restrictive abortion bans in a series of victories for abortion rights advocates. Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota, meanwhile, rejected similar constitutional amendments and left the bans in place.
Abortion law changes also passed in Arizona, Colorado, Maryland and Montana. Nevada voters also approved an amendment supporting abortion rights, but must pass it again in 2026 for it to take effect. In New York, a different law prevailed that prohibits discrimination based on “pregnancy outcomes.”
The abortion landscape saw a monumental shift in 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. Wade overturned, a ruling that ended a nationwide right to abortion and paved the way for bans to take effect in most Republican-controlled states.
Currently, 13 states enforce abortion bans at all stages of pregnancy, with few exceptions, and four have bans that go into effect around the sixth week of pregnancy — often before women realize they are pregnant.
Almost every ban was challenged with a lawsuit. Courts have blocked enforcement of some restrictions, including pregnancy bans in Utah and Wyoming. Judges lifted bans in Georgia and North Dakota in September 2024. The Georgia Supreme Court ruled the following month that the ban could be enforced there while the case was still under review.
In the Wyoming case, the women and nonprofits challenging the laws argued that the bans would endanger their health, well-being and livelihoods — claims that were disputed by prosecutors. They also argued that the bans violated a 2012 state constitutional amendment that says competent Wyoming residents have the right to make their own health care decisions.
As with previous rulings, Owens found both arguments to be valid. The abortion bans “will undermine the integrity of the medical profession by impairing the ability of physicians to provide evidence-based medicines to their patients,” Owens ruled.
The abortion laws impede women’s fundamental right to make health care decisions for an entire group of people – those who are pregnant – in violation of the constitutional amendment, Owens ruled.
Voters in Wyoming approved the change because they feared the government would go too far after passing the federal Affordable Care Act and its initial health insurance requirements.
Prosecutors argued that health care under the change did not include abortion. Republican Gov. Mark Gordon, whose administration has defended the laws passed in 2022 and 2023, did not immediately respond via email Monday seeking comment.
Both sides wanted Owens to rule on the abortion ban lawsuit instead of allowing the trial to take place in the spring. A three-day trial before Owens had already been scheduled, but will not be necessary with this ruling.
