{"id":34900,"date":"2024-11-19T02:00:48","date_gmt":"2024-11-19T08:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=34900"},"modified":"2024-11-19T02:00:59","modified_gmt":"2024-11-19T08:00:59","slug":"judge-strikes-down-wyomings-abortion-laws-saying-they-violate-state-constitution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=34900","title":{"rendered":"Judge strikes down Wyoming’s abortion laws, saying they violate state constitution"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Wyoming judge ruled Monday that two laws restricting and banning abortion in the state violate its constitution, making the procedure legal<\/a> up until fetal viability for the time being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens imposed an injunction on the pair of state laws in a ruling that said they ran afoul of the state constitution, which says every person has a right to personal autonomy in making medical decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Owens wrote that under the two statutes \u2014 the Life Act and the Medication Abortion Ban \u2014 the state “has enacted laws that impede the fundamental right to make health care decisions for an entire class of people, pregnant women.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Owens added that the state laws created a restriction on abortion beginning at the earliest stages of development, did not differentiate between a zygote and fetus and did not distinguish between a previable and a viable fetus. The statutes were therefore \u201cfacially unconstitutional,\u201d Owens wrote, as they placed \u201cunreasonable and unnecessary restrictions\u201d on pregnant women\u2019s rights to make their own health care decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Court concludes that the Abortion Statutes suspend a woman\u2019s right to make her own health care decisions during the entire term of a pregnancy and are not reasonable or necessary to protect the health and general welfare of the people,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The case could be appealed to the Wyoming Supreme Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The governor’s office and the state attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wyoming had enacted a near-total abortion ban in March 2023, as well as a trigger ban that went into effect after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Owens has bl<\/a>o<\/a>cked<\/a> the state’s abortion laws three times now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the plaintiffs in the current suit, Wellspring Health Access, opened as Wyoming\u2019s only full-service abortion clinic last year. The clinic was the target of an arson attack<\/a> in 2022, weeks before it was initially scheduled to open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ruling is the latest setback for anti-abortion-rights groups. During the 2024 election, ballot measures enshrining abortion rights in states\u2019 constitutions passed in seven of the 10 states where they were proposed<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Wyoming judge ruled Monday that two laws restricting and banning abortion in the state violate its constitution, making the procedure legal up until fetal viability for the time being. Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens imposed an injunction on the pair of state laws in a ruling that said they ran afoul of the state constitution, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":34901,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4395,7582,1370,3944],"class_list":["post-34900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-abortion-rights","tag-judges","tag-legal","tag-wyoming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34900"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34902,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34900\/revisions\/34902"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}