Abortion stays legal in Wyoming as its top court strikes down laws,
including first US pill ban
[January 07, 2026]
By MEAD GRUVER
FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) — Abortion will remain legal in Wyoming after
the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that two laws barring the
procedure, including the country’s first explicit ban on abortion pills,
violate the state constitution.
The justices sided with the state’s only abortion clinic and others who
had sued over the abortion bans passed since 2022, when the U.S. Supreme
Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.
Wyoming is one of the most conservative states, but the 4-1 ruling from
justices all appointed by Republican governors was unsurprising in that
it upheld every previous lower court ruling that the abortion bans
violated the state constitution.
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 competent
adults have the right to make their own health care decisions.
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 address this issue,” the justices
wrote.
The ruling upholds abortion as “essential health care” that shouldn't be
subject to government interference, Wellspring Health Access President
Julie Burkhart said in a statement.
“Our clinic will remain open and ready to provide compassionate
reproductive health care, including abortions, and our patients in
Wyoming will be able to obtain this care without having to travel out of
state,” Burkhart said.
The clinic opened in 2023 as the only facility of its kind in the state,
almost a year later than planned after an arson attack. A woman who
admitted breaking in and causing heavy damage by lighting gasoline that
she poured over the clinic floors pleaded guilty and has been serving a
five-year prison sentence.
Attorneys for the state had argued before the state Supreme Court that
abortion can’t violate the Wyoming constitution because it is not health
care.
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This April 24, 2023. photo, shows the Wellspring Health Access
clinic in Casper, Wyo. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown, File)
 Gov. Mark Gordon, a Republican, said
in a statement that the court ruling disappointed him. He called on
state lawmakers meeting later this winter to pass a constitutional
amendment banning abortion that would go before voters this fall.
“This ruling may settle, for now, a legal question,
but it does not settle the moral one, nor does it reflect where many
Wyoming citizens stand, including myself. It is time for this issue
to go before the people for a vote,” Gordon said.
Such an amendment would require a two-thirds vote to be introduced
as a nonbudget matter in the monthlong legislative session that will
be devoted primarily to the state budget. But it would have wide
support in the Republican-dominated statehouse.
One of the laws overturned Tuesday sought to ban abortion except to
protect a pregnant woman’s life or in cases involving rape or
incest. The other law would have made Wyoming the only state to
explicitly ban abortion pills, though other states have instituted
de facto bans on abortion medication by broadly prohibiting
abortion.
Abortion has remained legal in the state since Teton County District
Judge Melissa Owens in Jackson blocked the bans while the lawsuit
challenging them went ahead. Owens struck down the laws as
unconstitutional in 2024.
Last year, Wyoming passed additional laws requiring abortion clinics
to be licensed surgical centers and women to get ultrasounds before
having medication abortions. A judge in a separate lawsuit has
blocked those laws from taking effect while that case proceeds.
Thirteen states currently ban abortion completely after the North
Dakota Supreme Court overturned an earlier ruling and upheld that
state's abortion ban in November.
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