Abortion rights advocates filed a modified lawsuit Tuesday to block Wyoming’s new abortion drug ban from taking effect.
Days after Republican Governor Mark Gordon signed the first clinic in the United States, a group seeking to open the state’s second abortion clinic has filed an amended lawsuit. Explicit prohibition of abortion drugs. Barring court intervention, the ban will take effect on July 1st.
Abortion rights advocates were trying to block another sweeping abortion ban that went into effect in Wyoming on Sunday without the governor’s signature. That law seeks to overcome objections that have led judges to suspend previous bans.
According to the lawsuit, the abortion drug ban and sweeping ban are inconsistent, creating confusion about what is and isn’t allowed under the new law. “The basic rights of Wyoming women and their families have been taken away by the state government and those rights will cease to exist,” the amended lawsuit said.
Wyoming’s new anti-abortion law makes exceptions to save the lives of pregnant women and in cases of rape or incest reported to police.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that advocates abortion rights, until Gordon signed the ban on medical abortion, no state had enacted a law specifically banning such drugs. but, abortion medicine Thirteen other states with outright bans on abortion had already banned it, and 15 states had already restricted access to the pill.
Medical abortion has also been targeted. Another lawsuit in Texas, There, anti-abortion opponents asked a federal judge to revoke the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone in 2000. A combination of mifepristone and two pills of another drug is the most common method of abortion in the United States.
Wyoming has only one women’s clinic in Jackson, which offers only medical abortions, but canceled appointments after a broad state ban went into effect this week.Teton County District Court Judge Melissa Owens said Wednesday. We plan to hold a public hearing on May 10 to consider whether to block that new ban while legal challenges are underway.
Wellspring Health Access, which is trying to stop the abortion drug ban and wider action, plans to open a clinic in Casper that will offer surgical and medical abortions. After an arson incident last summer prevented the clinic from opening as planned, organizers hoped it would open next month.
“People in Wyoming have a right to access to the full spectrum of reproductive health care, including both surgical and medical abortion, and Wyoming has a right to access,” said Julie Burkhart, president of Wellspring Health Access, in a statement. We are fighting to keep medical abortion legal in the United States,” he said.
Until this week, abortion was legal in Wyoming, despite being banned following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Overturning its landmark Roe v. Wade abortion ruling. In suspending that ban in July, Owens determined it would harm women with pregnancy complications and their doctors.
She also found that a 2012 state constitutional amendment may allow abortion by guaranteeing the right to make health care decisions for oneself.
The new sweeping ban argues that abortion is not medical, so the amendment does not apply to abortion.
Since Roe reversed in June, the situation has changed rapidly, with abortion restrictions up to the states.
Other states where courts have imposed bans or severe restrictions are Arizona, Indiana, Montana, Ohio, South Carolina, and Utah. A court in Idaho has forced the state to allow abortions in the event of a medical emergency.
