Wyoming’s only abortion clinic is resuming abortions after a judge suspended two state laws on Monday.
The suspended law requires clinics that provide surgical abortions as outpatient surgical centers. The other requires that the woman obtain ultrasound before a drug abortion.
Casper’s Wyoming Health Access stopped offering abortions on February 28, the day after Republican Gov. Mark Gordon signed the licensing requirements.
The outcome: At least some people wanted an abortion, they had to move out of state. Now people can get abortions in central Wyoming again, but the two laws continue to be contested in court, Julie Burkhart, founder and president of Well Spring Health Access, said Monday.
“We’ll immediately scream it off the roof and make sure we know the patient,” Burkhart said following the verdict. “We’ve returned to looking at patients like the ones on February 27th.”
Abortion opponents questioned the need to challenge the law if the clinic was safe.
“The abortion business here in Casper can prove that it provides safe services by absenting the law. Wouldn’t that make it their point?” Ross Schliftman, president of Natrona County’s Rights of Life, said in an email statement Monday.
Abortions continue to be legal in Wyoming despite the ban being passed since 2022. The ban includes the nation’s first express ban on abortion drugs.
After a Jackson judge blocked the ban, they beat them in November on the ground that abortions are permitted by a 2012 state constitutional amendment that guarantees the right to make their own medical decisions.
The Wyoming Supreme Court heard the debate in the case Wednesday, but it’s unlikely to take over it for at least a few weeks.
Meanwhile, four women, including well health access advocacy group Chelsea Fund and two obstetricians, have sued the same people who have challenged the ban, who have pleaded for blocking Wyoming’s two latest abortion laws.
The surgical center licensing requirements require costly renovations to comply with well health access, the clinic said in its lawsuit.
Gordon rejected the ultrasound requirement at least 48 hours before pill abortion, calling it troublesome in cases of abuse, rape, or when a person’s health is at risk. State lawmakers voted to override the veto on March 5th.
While ultrasound requirements had no significant impact on clinic operations, access to well health was also suspended to provide pill abortions to avoid legal complications. The law is supposed to increase the costs and complications for women undergoing abortions.
Opponents call laws like Wyoming’s requirements “limits covered by abortion providers.” This is because even if abortion is legal, it can regulate the absence of access to clinics and abortions.
While the lawsuit was underway, in blocking the law, District Judge Thomas Campbell of Casper held that they would also stand to violate the Constitution.
Despite new restrictions, Well Spring’s health access remains open to consult with patients and to provide hormone replacement therapy to transgender patients. The clinic opened in 2023. It is almost a year behind the major damage caused by an arson attack.
