Casper’s abortion clinic called on a judge to block the state’s latest abortion laws, claiming they violate a Wyoming right to make one’s own health care choices and seek to use onerous regulation to block access to in-clinic abortions.
The lawsuit was filed after midnight Friday, hours after Gov. Mark Gordon signed legislation placing new restrictions on clinics performing abortion.
Casper’s Wellspring Health Access is the one facility in Wyoming that provides in-clinic abortions. The clinic has joined other plaintiffs in previous lawsuits against attempts by Wyoming lawmakers to ban abortions. One of those lawsuits currently sits in front of the Wyoming Supreme Court.
But lawmakers have continued heaping new restrictions onto abortion providers in the state and this year pushed a bill targeting Wellspring. House Bill 42, “Regulation of surgical abortions,” would require Wellspring to be licensed as an ambulatory surgical center — health care facilities that perform surgeries but are not hospitals. The classification comes with Department of Health inspections, rules and regulations, such as building codes.
According to the lawsuit, the bill piled seven onerous requirements on Wellspring in an attempt to force its closure.
The bill was written to be effective as law immediately following Gordon’s signature. The lawsuit also cites House Bill 64, “Chemical abortions-ultrasound requirement”, which requires a woman to get an intrusive ultrasound within 48 hours of an abortion.
Though conservative lawmakers pitched the bills as an effort to keep patients safe, Wyoming Speaker of the House Chip Nieman has said on the floor that he hopes the ultrasound bill, at least, stops abortions, not just regulates them.
The lawsuit contends that’s the intention of both bills.
“Under the Criminal TRAP Laws, abortion care-providing physicians will be required to meet onerous and costly requirements not required of any other physicians practicing medicine in their private offices who conduct minor procedures or prescribe and dispense medications,” the lawsuit read.
The complaint, authored by Casper attorney John Robinson, asks a judge to issue a temporary restraining order and injunctions blocking the two laws’ implementation. Plaintiffs asked a judge to hold an emergency hearing on Friday or as soon as possible.
The clinic remained open Friday, Wellspring founder and president Julie Burkhart told WyoFile. “But we are not seeing patients at the moment,” Burkhart said. “While we have this new regulation to navigate, we are not abandoning our patients — we are still there for them.”
The post Abortion clinic files lawsuit to block new Wyoming laws appeared first on WyoFile .