A state judge on Monday struck down Wyoming’s overall ban on abortion and its first-in-the-nation explicit prohibition on the use of medication to end pregnancy.
Since 2022, Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens has ruled three times to block the laws while they were disputed in court.
The ruling marks another victory for abortion rights advocates after voters in seven states passed measures this month in support of access.
One Wyoming law that Owens said violated women’s rights under the state constitution bans abortion except to protect to a pregnant woman’s life or in cases involving rape and incest. The other made Wyoming the only state to explicitly ban abortion pills, though other states have instituted de facto bans on the medication by broadly prohibiting abortion.
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 following an arson attack in 2022.
“This is a wonderful day for the citizens of Wyoming — and women everywhere who should have control over their own bodies,” Wellspring Health Access President Julie Burkhart said in a statement.
November’s elections saw voters in Missouri clear the way to undo one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion bans in a series of victories for abortion rights advocates. Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota, meanwhile, defeated similar constitutional amendments, leaving bans in place.
Abortion rights amendments also passed in Arizona, Colorado, Maryland and Montana. Nevada voters also approved an amendment, but they’ll need to pass it again it 2026 for it to take effect. Another measure that bans discrimination on the basis of “pregnancy outcomes” prevailed in New York.
The abortion landscape underwent a seismic shift in 2022 when the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a ruling that ended a nationwide right to abortion and cleared the way for bans to take effect in most Republican-controlled states.
Thirteen states have bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with limited exceptions, and four have bans that kick in around six weeks into pregnancy — often before women realize they’re pregnant.
Nearly every ban has been challenged with a lawsuit. Courts have blocked enforcement of some restrictions, including bans throughout pregnancy in Utah and Wyoming. Judges struck down bans in Georgia and North Dakota in September. Georgia’s Supreme Court ruled the next month that the state’s ban can be enforced while it considers the case.
In the Wyoming case, the women and nonprofits who challenged the laws argued that the bans stood to harm their health, well-being and livelihoods, claims disputed by attorneys for the state. They also argued the bans violated a 2012 state constitutional amendment saying competent Wyoming residents have a right to make their own health care decisions.
As she had done with previous rulings, Owens found merit in both arguments. The abortion bans “will undermine the integrity of the medical profession by hamstringing the ability of physicians to provide evidence-based medicine to their patients,” Owens ruled.
The abortion laws impede the fundamental right of women to make health care decisions for an entire class of people — those who are pregnant — in violation of the 2012 constitutional amendment, Owens ruled.
Wyoming voters approved that amendment amid fears of government overreach following approval of the federal Affordable Care Act and its initial requirements for people to have health insurance.
Attorneys for the state argued that health care, under the amendment, didn’t include abortion. Republican Gov. Mark Gordon, who signed the abortion laws into effect in 2022 and 2023, did not immediately return an email Monday seeking comment.
Both sides wanted Owens to rule on the lawsuit challenging the abortion bans rather than allow it to go to trial in the spring. A three-day bench trial before Owens was previously set but won’t be necessary with this ruling.
This story has been updated with additional reporting.