Now that the elections are over, Wyoming has taken center stage on “reproductive rights,” thanks to a Monday District Court ruling on two state abortion bans.
Teton County District Court Judge Melissa Owens blocked Wyoming’s two abortion bans Monday, saying abortion is health care and the Wyoming Constitution protects a woman’s right to the procedure.
The plaintiffs brought numerous constitutional challenges to the ban but one showing of unconstitutionality is enough, Owens wrote in her summary judgment order.
The Wyoming Constitution says each competent adult has a right to make his or her own health care decisions.
That’s a provision the state’s voters enacted in 2012, in response to an Obama-era health insurance program, colloquially called “Obamacare.”
Regardless of what the voters intended with that constitutional amendment, it now protects abortion.
Owens was appointed by Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon (R) in December of 2021. The two restrictive laws on abortion, HB152, the “Life is a Human Right Act,” and SF109, “Prohibiting chemical abortions,” were passed by the Wyoming Legislature in 2023 and signed into law by Gov. Gordon. In March of 2023, Owens granted a temporary restraining order to the laws’ implementation, and this was appealed by the defendants to the Wyoming Supreme Court. When additional intervenors requested to join the litigation, the Wyoming Supreme Court denied the request, and the case was returned to Owens. In Owens’ Monday ruling, she decided that a living, breathing human being trumps the formation of a being that only has the “potential of life.”
Later in the document, Owens added, “The Court cannot reconcile how a small group of prenatal cells, such as a zygote, that has only the potential of life, can trump the fundamental right of a living, breathing, pregnant woman to make her own medical decisions.”
Gov. Gordon says the state plans to appeal this ruling. […]
— Read More: redstate.com
