CHEYENNE—Gov. Mark Gordon has until midnight Thursday to decide on a bill to add new restrictions to clinics that provide abortions, which would make it difficult for the lone facility that provides in-house procedures in Wyoming to remain open.
House Bill 42, “Regulation of surgical abortions,” would enact several regulations on Wyoming clinics that perform abortions, including stricter licensure and building codes, as well as admitting privileges at a hospital no further than 10 miles away.
Lawmakers are also considering sending four other abortion-related bills Gordon’s way. He can sign bills, veto them or let them become law without his signature.
Meanwhile, just down the street from the Capitol, the Wyoming Supreme Court is considering an appeal from the state after a Teton County judge struck down Wyoming’s abortion bans in November, ruling they violate the state constitution.
“Abortion currently remains legal in Wyoming, thus the need to regulate abortion,” Rep. Martha Lawley told the Senate Labor, Health and Social Services Committee earlier this month.
The Worland Republican is the main sponsor of HB 42.
“I believe as long as abortion remains legal in Wyoming, we have the responsibility to protect the health and safety of women who are getting surgical abortions,” Lawley said.
Casper’s Wellspring Health Access is the sole facility in the state providing in-clinic abortions. Wellspring is also among the plaintiffs who sued the state over abortion bans passed by the Legislature in 2023.
If Lawley’s bill makes it into law, the clinic could be forced to close.
“The legislative attacks in Wyoming serve one purpose — to force providers like Wellspring to have to close their clinics and cease providing care,” Kimya Forouzan with the Guttmacher Institute recently told reporters at a press conference.
“By chipping away at access, this stifles people’s options for care and opens the door to a total abortion ban,” Forouzan said.
Wyoming’s constitution prohibits special laws — or statutes that apply to a specific group of people, things or places, rather than the general public. Wellspring has yet to decide whether it would challenge the regulations on that basis if the bill becomes law.
“We do not have a clear answer at this very moment, but I can tell you that our intention is to keep the clinic open,” Julie Burkhart, the clinic’s founder, told WyoFile.
“And we will utilize all the resources and tools in our toolbox in order to keep the clinic open, we just have not made a firm decision yet exactly what that will look like.”
Several other bills related to abortion failed earlier in the session, including one that would have made drug manufacturers liable for any abortion pill chemical waste found in Wyoming water.
Transvaginal ultrasounds
The Senate on Tuesday passed House Bill 64, “Chemical abortions-ultrasound requirement,”, which would require a patient to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound before taking abortion medication.
The legislation would also require a 48-hour waiting period between the ultrasound and receiving the medication.
The bill’s main sponsor, Speaker of the House Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, told lawmakers in January that the legislation was about safety, but also preventing abortion in Wyoming.
“I absolutely believe life is precious,” Neiman said on the floor. “We should do everything that we possibly can to protect it.”
Sen. Lynn Hutchings, R-Cheyenne, echoed that intention on the Senate floor Tuesday.
“I think it’s our right and desire to try to do everything we can to either stop it, or make it as safe as possible,” she said.
Laramie Democrat Sen. Chris Rothfuss disputed that.
“The idea that this is about protecting health care, protecting the health of the woman, is just not consistent with the nature of the bill and the action of the bill,” Rothfuss said. “The 48-hour required waiting period is clearly structural inconvenience. That’s its purpose.”
Forcing a woman to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound will “lead to higher expenses, more inconvenience, and in this case, really a violation of privacy,” Rothfuss said.
The Senate voted 24-7 to pass the bill Tuesday.
It also adopted several amendments, including one to lessen its penalty from a felony to a misdemeanor. Because it was amended, the bill now goes back to the House for concurrence.
Defining health care
In her decision, Teton County District Court Judge Melissa Owens ruled that Wyoming’s near-total ban on abortion and a prohibition against abortion medications conflicted with a 2012 constitutional amendment that protects individuals’ rights to make their own health care decisions.
“The Court concludes that the Abortion statutes suspend a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions during the entire term of a pregnancy and are not reasonable or necessary to protect the health and general welfare of the people,” Owens ruled.
Both laws passed during the 2023 general session after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Now, lawmakers seek to define abortion as “not health care” with Senate File 125, “Defining health care and protecting the people’s welfare.”
Senate File 125 would go into effect on either March 12, 2026, or the day the Wyoming Supreme Court decides on the current case — whichever comes first.
The trigger effect was important, the bill’s sponsor Sen. Cheri Steinmetz, R-Torrington, told the committee, so as to not disrupt or delay the ongoing litigation.
Rep. Paul Hoeft, R-Powell, brought an unsuccessful amendment Monday to have the bill go into effect immediately if it becomes law. It failed in committee in a tie vote.
The Senate passed the bill 24-6 with one excused earlier this month. It was up for first reading in the House at publishing time.
Off-label prescriptions
The two remaining bills are primarily directed at other subjects, but could also affect abortion access.
House Bill 164, “Medical prescriptions-off-label purposes,” for example, would authorize the use of most off-label prescriptions, which already account for between 21% and 32% of all prescriptions in the United States.
“We’ve seen over decades that doctors have done this and then it’s only been recent years that there’s been a problem with it,” Cheyenne Republican Rep. Gary Brown, the bill’s main sponsor, said on the floor.
More specifically, Brown said the bill was needed to protect physicians from getting their licenses revoked for prescribing off-label prescriptions.
The bill comes with several exceptions, including a prohibition on off-label prescriptions that are “intended to induce an abortion.”
Speaking against the bill on the floor, Rep. Ken Chestek, D-Laramie, said that exception is “the heart of the bill.”
“We make [all off-label prescriptions] legal except we’re making certain things illegal. That’s the point of this bill,” he said.
The House passed the bill 42-15 with five excused. It was heard in the Senate Labor Committee on Monday, but a vote was not taken. Thursday is the last day for bills to be reported out of committee in their second chamber.
Pregnancy centers
While lawmakers are seeking restrictions on in-clinic abortions, they’re also looking to prohibit certain regulations on crisis pregnancy centers.
More specifically, House Bill 273, “Wyoming pregnancy centers-autonomy and rights” would ban the state and local governments from enacting oversight or regulation on pregnancy centers based on their stance against abortion.
The bill’s definition for pregnancy center is “a private nonprofit organization that promotes childbirth and alternatives to abortion and provides women, children and families with resources, counseling, classes, referrals and information related to pregnancy, childbearing, adoption and parenting.”
Under the bill, pregnancy centers could not be forced to offer or perform abortions, or be required to offer or distribute abortion medication. Additionally, centers could not be forced to offer, provide or distribute contraceptives.
If enacted and challenged in court on its constitutionality or legality, the legislation also provides lawmakers with a right of intervention. More specifically, the Legislature would have the ability to appoint one or more members to intervene in the case.
Chestek brought an unsuccessful motion to strike that language.
“My problem with this is that it completely obliterates the separation of powers,” he said on the floor.
“Whether a party is allowed to intervene in a case as a party is a matter of discretion for the court,” Chestek said.
The bill’s main sponsor, Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams, R-Cody, defended the language.
“It would be an opportunity to show intent of the legislation that’s been passed and clear up any misconceptions or misperceptions that perhaps a one-sided court would be dealing with,” she said on the floor.
The House voted 46-12 with two excused to pass HB 273. At publishing time, it was awaiting first reading in the Senate.
In 2023, Rodriguez-Williams along with Speaker of the House Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, and Secretary of State Chuck Gray were blocked in district court from intervening in the legal proceedings involving Wyoming’s abortion bans.
Earlier this month, Rodriguez-Williams, Neiman and Sen. Tim Salazar made a similar request to the Wyoming Supreme Court, this time to file an amicus or friend of the court brief. The high court has not yet made a decision.
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