Wyoming’s Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that two state laws barring abortion violate the state constitution, striking down what would have been the country’s only explicit ban on abortion pills and preserving legal access to abortion in one of the nation’s most conservative states. The 4-1 decision, issued by justices all appointed by Republican governors, upheld every prior lower court ruling in the case.
The ruling rests on a 2012 state constitutional amendment guaranteeing competent adults the right to make their own health care decisions — a provision voters approved in response to the federal Affordable Care Act, not to address abortion. Gov. Mark Gordon immediately called on the state legislature to pursue a constitutional amendment banning abortion that would go before voters.
The case was brought by Wellspring Health Access in Casper — the state’s only abortion clinic — the abortion access advocacy group Chelsea’s Fund, and four women, including two obstetricians. They argued that the abortion bans passed since 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, violated the amendment’s health care guarantees. State attorneys had argued that abortion cannot violate the Wyoming constitution because it is not health care.
The justices acknowledged the 2012 amendment was not written with abortion in mind, but said it is not their role 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 court wrote.
Julie Burkhart, president of Wellspring Health Access, said the ruling upholds abortion as “essential health care” that should not be subject to government interference. “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.
Gordon said in a statement that the ruling disappointed him. “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. He called on state lawmakers meeting later this winter to pass a constitutional amendment banning abortion that would appear on this fall’s ballot.
Such an amendment would require a two-thirds vote to be introduced as a nonbudget matter in Wyoming’s monthlong legislative session. It would, however, have broad support in the Republican-dominated statehouse, according to the Associated Press.
One of the laws struck down sought to ban abortion except to protect a pregnant woman’s life or in cases involving rape or incest. The other would have made Wyoming the only state to explicitly ban abortion pills, though other states have enacted de facto bans on abortion medication by broadly prohibiting abortion.
Abortion had remained legal in Wyoming throughout the litigation after Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens blocked both laws while the case proceeded; Owens struck them down as unconstitutional in 2024.
Wellspring Health Access opened in Casper in 2023, nearly a year later than planned after an arson attack caused heavy damage to the clinic before it opened. A woman who admitted breaking in and setting the fire by pouring gasoline over the clinic floors pleaded guilty and has been serving a five-year prison sentence.
Wyoming passed additional laws last year requiring abortion clinics to be licensed surgical centers and requiring women to obtain ultrasounds before 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, following a November ruling in which the North Dakota Supreme Court upheld that state’s abortion ban.