Albany County Democrats Wyoming

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Reproductive Rights in Wyoming

What You Need to Know about Reproductive Rights in Wyoming.

DEAD! HB 159 regulating chemical abortions

The bill died Feb. 10, 2025. This far Right-Wing wishlist would have established strict regulations for chemical abortions in Wyoming, focusing on medical procedures, environmental protection, and legal liability. The legislation requires healthcare providers to physically examine patients, be present when the first abortion drug is taken, schedule a follow-up visit within seven days, and provide patients with a catch kit and medical waste bag for proper disposal. The bill would have imposed significant criminal penalties on healthcare providers who do not follow these requirements, including potential imprisonment up to three years and fines up to $10,000.

The most whimiscal part was the attempt to keep so-called abortion drugs from entering wastewater or public water supplies, making drug manufacturers strictly liable for any environmental contamination, including endocrine-disrupting chemical byproducts. The bill required the Department of Health and Environmental Quality to create rules implementing these new requirements and becomes effective immediately upon completing the necessary legal steps for enactment.

DEAD ! HB250 Defining life and the rights of natural persons

Also on Feb. 10, a bill died that purported to define "person" as a living human being with specific physiological functions, including heart function, respiratory system function, central nervous system function, brain function, skeletal development, joint or muscle appendage development, and organ function. The bill establishes a fundamental right to health protection for individuals and places restrictions on health care decisions that could harm these physiological functions.

Abortion and associated reproductive rights are still legal in Wyoming!

But for how long?

The State of Wyoming, at Gov. Mark Gordon’s direction, has appealed the November 2024 ruling of Teton County District Court Judge Melissa Owens.

On Feb. 3, 2025, a state attorney filed a 100-page argument, saying a Teton County district judge made a mistake when she struck down the state’s two near-total abortion bans and granted access earlier this fall.

Judge Melissa Owens argued that abortion is healthcare, so it’s protected under the state’s constitution.

“The Court cannot reconcile how a small group of prenatal cells, such as a zygote, that has only the potential of life, can trump the fundamental right of a living, breathing, pregnant woman to make her own medical decisions,” Owens wrote in her ruling.

The opinion hinged almost entirely on an addition to the Wyoming Constitution, which grants Wyomingites the right to make their own healthcare decisions. That 2012 amendment was a conservative rebuke of the Affordable Care Act, but now it’s the crux of the ongoing legal battle.

The official citation for the case is Johnson v. Wyoming, No. 2023-CV-18853 (Wyo. Dist. Ct. Nov. 18, 2024)

Wyoming Constitution

This is what the constitution says:

Section 1, Article 38

(a) Each competent adult shall have the right to make his or her own health care decisions. The parent, guardian or legal representative of any other natural person shall have the right to make health care decisions for that person.

(b) Any person may pay, and a health care provider may accept, direct payment for health care without imposition of penalties or fines for doing so.

(c) The legislature may determine reasonable and necessary restrictions on the rights granted under this section to protect the health and general welfare of the people or to accomplish the other purposes set forth in the Wyoming Constitution.

(d) The state of Wyoming shall act to preserve these rights from undue governmental infringement.

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Want to know more? Check out these resources:

ACLU of Wyoming - general site

Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains - general site

Planned Parenthood, Fort Collins

825 S Shields St.

970-493-0281

Pro-Choice Wyoming - general site

Pro-Choice Wyoming - donate here

Wellspring Health Access- general site