Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon on Monday signed ban on abortions after embryotic cardiac exercise will be detected, usually at about six weeks’ gestation and sometimes earlier than ladies know they’re pregnant.
The signing makes Wyoming the fifth state to bar abortions at that stage of being pregnant, together with Florida, Georgia, Iowa and South Carolina. Thirteen different states bar abortion in any respect phases of being pregnant, with some exceptions.
Gordon, a Republican, mentioned in a letter to lawmakers Monday that he has some misgivings in regards to the regulation he signed as a result of it doesn’t embody exceptions for pregnancies attributable to rape or incest. “Where the act does not align to my pro-life stance is in the concern for specific vulnerable populations,” he wrote.
The regulation does make an exception in circumstances to “preserve the woman from an imminent peril that substantially endangers her life or health, according to appropriate medical judgment.”
The different difficulty, Gordon mentioned, is that the regulation “very likely puts us back in the all too familiar and unfortunate territory of pro-life litigation.” The state’s Supreme Court in January caught down a ban on abortion all through being pregnant.
Already on Monday, Julie Burkhart, president of Wellspring Health Access — the state’s solely clinic providing each abortion procedures and abortion by medicine — mentioned in an announcement that she was ready to problem the brand new ban in court docket.
“This ban is an attack on Wyomingites’ constitutional freedom to make their own health care decisions, and it puts the health and well-being of our communities at risk,” she mentioned.
Abortion entry in Wyoming has different lately, partially as a result of the state’s sole clinic was set on hearth in 2022, delaying its opening. At occasions, it has supplied solely medicine abortion. The state Health Department says that in 2024, the final 12 months for which data have been compiled, there have been 625 abortions within the state.
Katie Knutter, government director of the Casper-based clinic, mentioned that it offered 303 abortions in 2025. She mentioned the employees on Monday began referring sufferers who’re farther alongside of their pregnancies to suppliers in different states.
Whether states enable abortion has been in flux since a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed states to implement bans.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ap-us-abortion-ban-wyoming_n_69b1753ee4b06efa4a0c4fc3