Abortion stays legal in Wyoming as its top court strikes down laws, including first US pill ban

By MEAD GRUVER, Associated Press

FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) — Abortion will remain legal in Wyoming after the state Supreme Court struck down laws that include the country’s first explicit ban on abortion pills, ruling Tuesday that they violate the state constitution.

The justices sided with the state’s only abortion clinic and others who had sued over the bans passed since 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.

Wellspring Health Access in Casper, the abortion access advocacy group Chelsea’s Fund and four women, including two obstetricians, argued that the laws violated a state constitutional amendment ensuring that competent adults have the right to make their own health care decisions.

Attorneys for the state, however, argued that abortion can’t violate the Wyoming constitution because it is not health care.

Voters approved the constitutional amendment in 2012 in response to the federal Affordable Care Act. The justices recognized that the amendment wasn’t written to apply to abortion but said it’s not their job to “add words” to the state constitution.

“But lawmakers could ask Wyoming voters to consider a constitutional amendment that would more clearly addre...