Wyoming’s latest attempt to curtail abortion runs afoul of the state constitution and should not be enforced, the same plaintiffs who successfully defeated the state’s past two abortion bans argue in a new lawsuit.
The suit, filed Tuesday, asks a judge to temporarily halt enforcement of the new law, which restricts abortion in all but the earliest weeks of pregnancy, while the case proceeds. It raises the likelihood of another protracted legal battle over abortion in Wyoming, which has seen litigation on the matter since shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Specifically, the plaintiffs allege the new law, which they call the “2026 Abortion Ban,” violates constitutional rights protecting access to health care, equal protection under the law and due process, among other things.
“The 2026 Abortion Ban is an ideological and sectarian law which is supported by no medical evidence and constitute[s] a restriction on health care without any basis in medical evidence,” the suit argues. “As such, the 2026 Abortion Ban constitutes an establishment of religion and the imposition of sectarian beliefs on all Wyoming citizens.”
In January, the Wyoming Supreme Court overturned a pair of 2023 abortion bans, concluding they violated a 2012 amendment to the Wyoming Constitution that protects individuals’ rights to make their own health care decisions. Gov. Mark Gordon called for a constitutional amendment to settle the matter, but lawmakers in March chose instead to pass a new law that bans abortions in the case of a “detectable fetal heartbeat,” which can come as early as six weeks.
Speaker of the House Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, sponsored the legislation, which he described as a way to “provide protection for life” within the constraints of January’s high court ruling.
Gordon signed the new law, saying it “is a well-intentioned but likely fragile legal effort with significant risk of ending in the courts rather than in lasting, durable policy.”
The law went into effect immediately and soon cut in half the patient load at Wellspring Health Access in Casper, the state’s lone clinic providing procedural abortions, the facility’s president told WyoFile last month. Abortion providers who fail to make a determination of a fetal heartbeat could face up to five years in prison.
The plaintiffs, which include Wellspring and other abortion rights advocates, contend the new law strips Wyoming women of their fundamental rights and fails to provide a workable definition of “detectable fetal heartbeat.”
While cardiac activity can be detected around six weeks, the term “fetal heartbeat” is a misnomer at this stage, according to physicians who note embryos don’t fully develop cardiac valves that produce the heartbeat sound until later.
By about six weeks, the cells that will eventually form a heart have developed into a tube that emits electrical impulses, but it’s unclear whether the new law refers to that or some other stage of development, the lawsuit states.
“Due to the lack of clarity regarding ‘detectable fetal heartbeat,’ abortion providers risk criminal sanctions and revocation of their professional license should they terminate a pregnancy at the wrong point in time,” the lawsuit contends. “Nurses and pharmacists are also liable if they make an incorrect determination with respect to [a] ‘detectable fetal heartbeat.'”
Wellspring and two doctors named as plaintiffs in the suit have stopped providing abortions and other reproductive care after the sixth week, the suit notes.
Other legal fights over abortion
The same group of plaintiffs also has an ongoing case challenging the legality of two abortion restrictions passed by lawmakers a year ago. One enacted a mandatory ultrasound before an abortion. The second started regulating abortion clinics like “ambulatory surgical centers,” imposing more stringent and costly regulations.
Both of those laws are on hold while that case is decided.
The plaintiffs sought to add their challenge to the heartbeat law to their existing suit over the 2025 laws. But on Tuesday, Judge Thomas C. Campbell denied that request, saying the factual issues between the two cases are “inherently different” and that “reopening deadlines and accommodating discovery would delay finality in” the 2025 challenge.
I am non-religious. However, I am pro life.
First, let’s talk about the wording of the law, “detectable heartbeat.” The article says, “While cardiac activity can be detected around six weeks, the term “fetal heartbeat” is a misnomer at this stage, according to physicians who note embryos don’t fully develop cardiac valves that produce the heartbeat sound until later.”
The law says “detectable heartbeat,” not electronic signal. “Detectable heartbeat” means what it says, e.g., the valves have developed.
Secondly, the science says that the embryo/fetus has different DNA than the mother. Thus, the embryo is NOT part of the mother’s flesh like her thumb. Killing an embryo/fetus is infanticide.
Our thumb has the same DNA as the rest of our body. If we cut off our thumb, we have control over our own body and have the right to do so. In that case we walk around thumbless.
When we kill an infant in the womb, we are destroying another human being (different DNA), we are killing another person. In that case, we walk around soulless.
We must have compassion for those caught in impossible situations, rape, invest, life of the mother, etc. However, wholesale abortion on demand is non-compassionate for another human being, a child in the womb.
Thank you Steve.
The pro abortion crowd is usually the “trust the science crowd”. EXCEPT when talking about the distinctly separate DNA having human being inside of a woman’s womb.
It is literally a completely different individual from the mother, NOT “her body”.
Steve: I take it from your reply that you have decided to never have an abortion yourself. Thank you for this bold stance. Now let other people make their own decisions about this issue.
Paul, are people allowed to “make their own decisions” whenever they want to end another human beings life?
I am so grateful to the doctors, nurses, lawyers, lay people and all others who keep fighting for women’s rights to make their own healthcare decisions. Getting the right to vote, to have our own credit cards and to purchase land was hard won, and my gratitude runs deep to all those who continue fighting to provide women with rights equal to those afforded men here in the US and abroad.
Thank you. Your efforts are changing lives for the better. I admire you all and honor your efforts.
Besides the basic sadness of one group inflicting their religious and medically inaccurate idealogical opinions on the mass, they are backed not by numbers but by money. We’ve become a country where the one with the most money wins. Sadly, abortion band affect the economically disadvantaged much more because the wealthy can always buy their way out of an unwanted pregnancy or unwanted child. And we definitely need more unwanted poor babies. Not.
More Project 2025, Hesthgate handmaids legislation.
Thank you for your post. Very accurate assessment regarding the powerful influence of outside money on the state legislature.
Good morning everyone! WYOFILE I wish to thank you for your fortitude, Love and example of what the FIRST AMENDMENT is in America and consistent reporting on THESE actions and activities of homosapien’s conduct in regards to lives of future AMERICANS and their survivability.
I feel confident that exercising our FIRST AMENDMENT can be difficult at a personal position in and of livelihood and business…
I commend our Wyoming Lawmakers in what they have achieved for our future Americans to and of Wyoming and set an example for and to the remaining 49 United States to enjoin with Wyoming.
The Love and compassion, to put into words what “Liberty and Justice for all” is awesome! Enlight of this example of our elected to accomplish this/these Laws by and of our/your my Constitution ensures protection of homosapien life.
Consequences of Life lived or in the momentum of living under circumstances of control or lack of control at a personal level is well put into words of understanding for each and every American and future Americans to have Honor to withhold appreciably, closely, dearly and honorably served to us by the elected to do so for the emoluments they received for doing so because of their Love and compassion to do so and expressed by communication of their FIRST AMENDMENT and representation of “We the people” aka constituents…
Again THANK YOU for your continued examples of your/our/my FIRST AMENDMENT of this Republic a Nation under God, SEMPER FI!