Judge Holds Wyoming’s Abortion Statutes Are Unconstitutional
- November 22, 2024
A trial court judge permanently enjoined Wyoming from enforcing statutory abortion restrictions, including a ban on medication abortion, after finding the laws violated the state constitution’s “right of health care access.”
Wyoming District Court Judge Melissa Owens granted summary judgment in favor of plaintiffs—four women and two nonprofits—who challenged Wyoming’s Life as a Human Right Act (Life Act), which prohibits most abortions, and the first-of-its kind medication abortion ban, which the state enacted in March 2023. Owens temporarily paused enforcement of both statutes while the challenges played out in court.
Plaintiffs argued, among other things, that the statutes violated an amendment to Wyoming’s Constitution passed by voters in 2012 in response to the enactment of the Affordable Care Act. The amendment provides that competent adults have the right to make their own health care decisions.
Citing the amendment, the court found the freedom to make health care decisions is a fundamental right under the state’s constitution, requiring a strict scrutiny analysis of the abortion statutes—i.e., that they are necessary to achieve a compelling state interest and are the least intrusive means necessary to accomplish those interests.
As a threshold issue, the court held that decisions regarding medication and surgical abortions constitute health care decisions subject to constitutional protection.
In so holding, the court rejected the state’s arguments that pregnancy does not fall under the definition of “health” because it is not a physical disease or sickness, that the Life Act specifically indicates an abortion is not health care, and that a woman’s decision to have an abortion is not her “own” because it also impacts the fetus.
“[P]rofessional medical services providing medication and surgical abortions to pregnant women, whether those women are physically well or unwell, is unambiguously ‘health care,’” the court said. “[T]he Court cannot conclude that abortions are not health care simply because the legislature has made such a pronouncement.”
The court also refused to find that an abortion does not constitute a pregnant woman’s “own health care decision” because it also impacts the fetus. “[S]uch reasoning would . . . allow the legislature to usurp nearly all prenatal medical decisions simply because anything pregnancy related impacts the fetus.”
The court acknowledged that the legislature is empowered to impose “reasonable and necessary” restrictions to “protect the health and general welfare.”
But the court found that the abortion statutes failed to accomplish any of the state’s asserted compelling interests, including the preservation of prenatal life at all stages of development, protecting maternal health and safety, and preventing discrimination.
The abortion statutes “elevate the rights of all potential life, even at the earliest stages of development over the fundamental rights of pregnant women during the entire duration of their pregnancy.” According to the court, “the State’s interest is not compelling until such time as the fetus is viable and capable of surviving outside of the mother’s womb.”
Johnson v. Wyoming, No. 2023-CV-18853 (Wyo. Dist. Ct. Nov. 18, 2024).