CHEYENNE—The Wyoming House of Representatives voted Tuesday to override Gov. Mark Gordon’s veto of a bill to require patients to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound and a 48-hour waiting period before taking abortion medication.
Gordon vetoed House Bill 64, “Chemical abortions-ultrasound requirement“, Monday night, citing concerns over the bill’s invasive nature and its lack of exceptions for victims of rape or incest.
“Every year we continue to lose unborn babies in Wyoming,” Gordon wrote in his veto letter. “Making it easier for mothers to have babies in Wyoming and supporting them afterward is a far better course. Mandating this intimate, personally invasive, and often medically unnecessary procedure goes too far.”
House members had not previously discussed the bill’s lack of exceptions, though exceptions for victims of rape and incest are included in both of Wyoming’s 2023 abortion bans.
“What the bill still requires is, even if you are a victim of rape, you still have to have a transvaginal ultrasound, that is requiring sticking a wand up inside of you after you have already been raped,” House Minority Floor Leader Mike Yin of Jackson said on the floor Tuesday.
Before engaging in debate about the need for exceptions for victims of rape and incest, Freedom Caucus Chairwoman Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams, R-Cody, took issue with Yin’s word choice.
“I really wish people, members of this body, would quit calling it a wand. That’s not what it is. It’s a transvaginal transducer,” she said.
Rodriguez-Williams went on to say that getting an ultrasound before taking abortion medication is “a matter of life and death” and medical providers need to know how far along a pregnancy is “regardless of the situation that somebody finds themselves — that a woman might find herself in.”
An ultrasound, however, isn’t necessary to accurately estimate gestational age, according to a 2022 review of medication abortions by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
The bill’s language does not specify “transvaginal ultrasound,” Rep. Jayme Lien, R-Casper, pointed out on the floor.
“The bill just simply says ultrasound technology,” Lien said.
Yin acknowledged this fact but said it didn’t matter because the bill “still requires it.
“Because that’s the only way to fulfill the requirements of the legislation, is to use a transvaginal ultrasound,” he said. “That’s why you don’t hear the sponsor of the bill denying that it isn’t one. Because it is.”
Abdominal ultrasounds are also used to evaluate pregnancies, but transvaginal ultrasounds provide clearer images in early pregnancy.
Yin also pointed to an amendment voted down in the Senate that would wave the transvaginal ultrasound requirement “unless expressly requested by the pregnant woman.”
The bill’s main sponsor, Speaker of the House Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, has said the bill is needed to keep women safe. He reiterated that assertion Tuesday, along with other previously stated motivations.
“If there’s abortion that potentially could be prevented from this and a child’s life could be saved, I guess I’d have to, you know, figure out what the downside of that is,” Neiman said.
The House voted 45-16 with one excused to override the governor’s veto.
The Senate had not yet taken up the matter at publishing time. The upper chamber has until the end of session to make a decision. The session is scheduled to adjourn on Thursday.
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