Wyoming lawmakers resort to TRAP approach to abortion restrictions
Because courts prevented outright bans, the state legislature has resorted to trying to close clinics by making it too cost-prohibitive to operate.
Wyoming Republicans are doing everything in their power to close the last abortion clinic in the state. Lately, they have sought to impose cumbersome regulations that make it impossible to comply with.
Wellspring Health Access is the last clinic in Wyoming. It’s in Casper. The legislature passed a law recently requiring that the building dimensions of the abortion clinic be the same as those of an ambulatory surgical center. The staff had to close the building for renovations to widen hallways and make other adjustments. Doctors there also must have admitting privileges to a hospital within 10 miles of the facility.
Megan Hayes, board chairwoman of Pro-Choice Wyoming, says the latter requirement will likely put them out of business.
“Doctors don't admit their patients that come to the clinic to the hospital,” Hayes said. “It's like rare or never. And you get admitting privileges because you send a certain number of patients to the hospital.”
Even if they could get past that, there is a lot of pushback from antiabortion protestors on hospitals providing admitting privileges to doctors who want them so they can provide abortions elsewhere.
In response to the law's passing, the clinic and several other abortion rights groups filed a complaint in district court challenging it. The brief argued that the Wyoming legislature passed the Right of Health Care Access amendment in 2012, which mandates that people have the right to make healthcare decisions for themselves without due infringement from the state.
In 2022, Wyoming passed a trigger law that banned abortions. It went into effect after the Dobbs decision came down. Pro-choice groups challenged the law and had District Judge Melissa Owens issue a preliminary injunction.
Undeterred, the Wyoming legislature adopted a new ban in 2023 with House Bill 152. It was narrower than the previous ban, but Owens again struck it down.
Because of the failure of those bills, the legislature took the approach seen historically with targeted regulations of abortion providers or TRAP laws as they’ve usually been known. With this approach, legislatures try to make it so cost-prohibitive to operate as an abortion clinic that they have no choice but to close. This was the most common method of infringing on reproductive rights between the Roe and Dobbs decision.
An additional law that hasn’t been as much of a focus is a requirement for an ultrasound and a waiting period for medication abortion. Republican Gov. Mark vetoed House Bill 148, titled “Regulation of Surgical Abortions,” because he didn’t want to interfere with an ongoing lawsuit challenging two abortion bans passed in 2023, he wrote in a letter explaining his decision, according to the Laramie Boomerang. Republican Rep. Martha Lawley had sponsored it.
Gordon said he wanted to wait until the legal battle played out in his veto letter.
“I implore you to let the Courts do their jobs so we can reach a decision quickly in these cases and quit trying to score points by loading up a simple and elegant solution like the one Representative Lawley originally proposed for seemingly the objective of having a vehicle to count pro-life votes before this year’s election,” the governor said.
I can't believe we've turned the clock this far back in my lifetime