Abortion remains legal in Wyoming — at least temporarily — after a judge on Wednesday ordered that a newly issued injunction be blocked until further court proceedings in a lawsuit challenging it.
After a three-hour hearing, Teton County District Court Judge Melissa Owens granted a temporary restraining order, interrupting a law that went into effect Sunday. The law would make almost all abortions a crime punishable by up to five years in prison.
The lawsuit — brought by six plaintiffs, including four health care providers — also challenges another law, which will go into effect July 1, and would affect Wyoming the first state to explicitly ban the use of pills for abortion. Now, the medication-abortion ban and blanket ban will be considered at a hearing where the plaintiffs will seek an injunction to suspend both laws until the full lawsuit can be heard.
A central question is whether Wyoming’s constitution allows the legislature to ban nearly all abortions, while the constitution contains an amendment guaranteeing adults the right to make their own health care decisions. An overwhelming majority of Wyoming residents voted in favor of the amendment in 2012.
Similar battles over the constitutionality of state abortion plans are playing out in other conservative states. In South Carolina and North Dakota, courts have ruled that abortion bans violate the constitutions of those states. In Idaho, courts have upheld the state’s abortion ban.
Last year, Judge Owens blocked a previously issued abortion ban, and a hearing on that is scheduled for December. The new ban, which took effect earlier this month, was an attempt by lawmakers to circumvent the constitutional guarantee of freedom in health care choice by declaring into law that abortion is not health care.
On Wednesday, Judge Owens questioned that claim. “I’m just still attached to abortion, not health care,” she told state attorney Jay Jerde, a special assistant attorney general for Wyoming.
“An abortion can only be performed by a licensed medical professional, so what authority does the legislature have to declare that abortion is not health care if our laws allow only a licensed medical professional to administer one?” she asked.
Regarding medication abortion, she noted that abortion pills are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. “How can a doctor actually prescribe those pills, not health care?” she asked.
Mr Jerde said the legislature’s premise was that “the intentional killing of an unborn child cannot be regarded as health care”.
“I have to admit, if you just focus on the pregnant woman, it becomes a little bit easier to say, well, this has to be health care,” he continued. “But when you look at it from that other perspective, it clearly isn’t.”
The accusers include Dr. Giovannina Anthony, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Wyoming’s only clinic that has performed abortions, and Wellspring Health Access, a clinic that plans to offer abortions when it opens this year. The other plaintiffs are another obstetrician-gynecologist who often treats high-risk pregnancies; an emergency room nurse; a fund that provides funding to abortion patients; and a woman who said her Jewish faith requires access to abortion if a pregnant woman’s physical or mental health or life is in danger.
John Robinson, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told Judge Owens that both the blanket ban and the ban on drug-induced abortion violate several constitutional provisions because they “seek to deprive women of their rights to equality, health care and religion for a very specific period of time.” life cycle from conception to birth.”
He said the laws state that during pregnancy, “the legislature does not consider woman an equal member of the human race and Wyoming.”
Mr. Jerde argued that the laws did not violate the constitutional provisions cited by the plaintiffs. He also said the implications of the plaintiffs’ arguments would be that a person with a health condition that could be treated with marijuana “would be free to possess and consume marijuana regardless of state laws that prohibit and criminalize it.”
Judge Owens said only courts can decide whether the laws are constitutional.
“Declaring abortion is not health care if there can be evidence to show that it is — the legislature cannot beat around the bush by essentially providing a constitutional amendment,” she said, adding “the state can make a constitutional “It’s not clear whether abortion is health care or not, and that’s for the court to decide.”