Now that the elections are over, Wyoming has taken center stage on “reproductive rights,” thanks to a Monday District Court ruling on two state abortion bans.
Teton County District Court Judge Melissa Owens blocked Wyoming’s two abortion bans Monday, saying abortion is health care and the Wyoming Constitution protects a woman’s right to the procedure.
The plaintiffs brought numerous constitutional challenges to the ban but one showing of unconstitutionality is enough, Owens wrote in her summary judgment order.
The Wyoming Constitution says each competent adult has a right to make his or her own health care decisions.
That’s a provision the state’s voters enacted in 2012, in response to an Obama-era health insurance program, colloquially called “Obamacare.”
Regardless of what the voters intended with that constitutional amendment, it now protects…
