Summary and details
Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon signed into law a ban on abortions after embryonic cardiac activity can be detected, generally at about six weeks’ gestation—often before many people know they are pregnant.
The legislation makes Wyoming the fifth state to restrict abortion at that point, alongside Florida, Georgia, Iowa and South Carolina. In addition, the state sits within a wider shift in abortion policy that began after the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed states to enforce abortion bans.
Gordon, a Republican, said he has concerns about the law he signed. In a letter to lawmakers, he wrote that where the act does not align with his pro-life stance is in what he called the absence of exceptions for “specific vulnerable populations,” including pregnancies caused by rape or incest.
The law does include another exception. It allows abortions in cases where doctors determine the procedure is needed to “preserve the woman from an imminent peril that substantially endangers her life or health, according to appropriate medical judgment.”
Gordon also said the measure “very likely puts us back in the all too familiar and unfortunate territory of pro-life litigation.” Wyoming’s Supreme Court had struck down an earlier ban on abortion throughout pregnancy in January, setting up the question of how the new six-week restriction will fare in the courts. (MSI previously reported that the Wyoming Supreme Court struck down abortion bans in 2026, including an early pill ban, in a decision that cleared the way for renewed challenges to state restrictions here.)
Within hours of the signing, Julie Burkhart, president of Wellspring Health Access—described by the state as the only clinic in Wyoming offering both abortion procedures and abortion by medication—said she was prepared to challenge the ban in court. She said the measure was an attack on what she called residents’ constitutional freedom to make their own health care decisions and said it would put community health and well-being at risk.
Wyoming abortion access has varied in recent years, in part because the state’s only clinic was set on fire in 2022, delaying its reopening. At times, the clinic offered only medication abortion rather than the full range of procedures.
In 2024, the Wyoming Health Department said there were 625 abortions in the state, the last year for which the department said records had been compiled. Katie Knutter, executive director of the Casper-based clinic, said the clinic provided 303 abortions in 2025 and that staff began referring some patients—those farther along in pregnancy—to providers in other states after Monday’s signing.