Wyoming top court strikes down nation's first abortion pill ban

Wyoming’s Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that abortion will remain legal in the state, undoing the country’s first abortion pill ban enacted following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 repeal of Roe v. Wade.

State justices, in a 4-1 decision, sided with Wellspring Health Access, the abortion access advocacy group Chelsea’s Fund and four women. They all argued that the anti-abortion law violated the state constitution and told the court that adults have the right to make their own health care decisions.

The state justices looked at the Life is a Human Right Act of 2023, which prohibited abortions from being performed in Wyoming and explicitly banned the pill. Three justices said the court “has an independent role in deciding what test applies to determine whether the 2023 laws violate the state constitution,” court filings read.

“Looking at prior cases and the language of Article 1, Section 38, the majority decided that a test called ‘strict scrutiny’ applies in this case,” the filings read. “Under that test, the State must prove the 2023 abortion laws were written as narrowly as possible to achieve the State’s interest in protecting prenatal life — that the abortion laws were the least burdensome way the State could achieve that goal without unjustifiably restricting a woman’s constitutional right to decide whether to terminate or continue a pregnancy.”

Wyoming Supreme Court Justice John Fenn concluded that the “state failed to prove the 2023 laws were ‘reasonable and necessary restrictions’ on the right to make one’s own health care decisions.”

State attorneys argued abortion is not health care, and therefore banning it cannot violate Wyoming’s state constitution, The Associated Press reported.

The state court’s decision came shortly before President Trump told House Republicans on Tuesday to be “flexible” with their demands to restrict federal funding going toward ObamaCare-funded health care plans covering abortion. Lawmakers are negotiating for a potential deal to revive ObamaCare subsidies that expired at the start of the new year

Top Republicans have fought to include new restrictions on federal funding for these health insurance-covered abortion services. Although the Hyde Amendment and other laws prevent federal funding going toward covering abortion, they do not prohibit plans through the Affordable Care Act from covering abortions so long as they are funded by state or private funding.