New laws complicate Wyoming's abortion situation

CASPER, Wyo. — When a Wyoming woman phoned the state's only abortion clinic recently to make an appointment to end her pregnancy, she received news that complicated her life even more. Wellspring Health Access had stopped providing abortions that same day, responding to a slew of new requirements for the Casper clinic to become a licensed surgical center. "It was kind of really bad timing on my part," said the woman, who declined to be named because of abortion's stigma in her community. Though abortion remains legal in Wyoming, it has become increasingly difficult because of new requirements for abortion clinics and women seeking abortions. In this case, the woman had to go to Colorado, which partially borders southern Wyoming. On Wednesday, the Wyoming Supreme Court is set to hear arguments over state abortion bans that a lower court judge has suspended and struck down as unconstitutional. But even if the state high court agrees with those rulings, access to abortion in Wyoming stands to remain uncertain. New state laws make getting abortions much harder One new law targets Wellspring Health Access as Wyoming's only abortion clinic, requiring licensure as an outpatient surgical center at a cost of up to $500,000 in renovations, according to the clinic. The law also requires the clinic's physicians to get admitting privileges at a hospital within 10 miles. A hospital three blocks from the clinic is under no obligation to admit its doctors, however. "This is an abortion ban without banning abortion," said Julie Burkhart, founder and president of Wellspring Health Access. A second new law requires women to get ultrasounds at least 48 hours before a medication abortion, costing them $250 or more plus gas money and travel time in a state where ultrasounds are unavailable in many rural areas. The Wyoming Legislature is well within its rights to regulate abortion to protect women from even the small chance of an abortion mishap, argued an attorney for the state, John Woykovsky, at a recent court hearing on the new laws. Unsettled abortion laws have far-reaching effects In most cases, a transvaginal ultrasound is required to obtain a fetal image in the earliest stages of pregnancy, when most abortions are done. That invasiveness, especially for victims of rape and abuse, caused Gov. Mark Gordon, a Republican, to veto the ultrasound bill a few days after he signed the surgical center requirement into law Feb. 27. The Republican-dominated Legislature overrode his veto, leading Wellspring Health Access, the Wyoming abortion access advocate Chelsea's Fund and others to sue over it and the licensing law. Meanwhile, the legal uncertainty caused Wellspring Health Access, which opened in 2023 after an arson attack delayed the original date by almost a year, to halt both medication and surgical abortions. Several dozen abortion opponents attended a Tuesday hearing in Casper on whether to suspend the laws while the lawsuit moves ahead. If that happens, clinic abortions will resume, to the dismay of opponents, said Ross Schriftman, president of the local Wyoming Right to Life chapter. "No inspections, no confirmation of whether the people committing the abortions are licensed doctors for Wyoming and no continuity of care to the hospital," Schriftman said by email. Abortion proponents claim support among Wyoming women A former Wyoming resident who, in 2017, got an abortion in neighboring Colorado, her closest option at the time, sympathized with rural Wyoming women seeking abortions now. "God forbid it's the winter," said Ciel Newman, who now lives in New Mexico. "Wyoming's a huge, rural state without much interstate coverage." The amount of business at Wellspring Health Access shows that the lawmakers who passed the abortion laws are out of step with their constituents, Burkhart said. "We have had people coming in our doors each and every week that we've been open," Burkhart said. "If people who come from Republican states, or more traditional-leaning states, didn't approve of abortion, we would go out of business because people just wouldn't show up." Is abortion access a Wyoming health care right? In the case about to be argued before the state Supreme Court, the same groups and women are suing over laws banning abortion that Wyoming has passed since 2022. They include the first explicit ban on medication abortions in the U.S. In November, a judge in Jackson ruled the bans violated a 2012 constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right of competent adults to make their own health care decisions. Even if the justices agree, Wellspring Health Access stands to suffer. Before the new laws, the clinic saw as many as 22 patients a day, 70% of whom were there for abortions: half surgical, half by pills. Now, Wellspring Health Access doesn't offer abortions and sees about five patients a day, all of whom are transgender people receiving hormone replacement therapy, according to the clinic. Twenty-three other states, including 14 that have not totally banned abortion, have passed requirements similar to Wyoming's that opponents call "targeted regulation of abortion providers," or TRAP, laws. Surgical center licensing and hospital admitting privileges are typical requirements, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that advocates for abortion access. Few states have passed TRAP laws since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, but abortion remains an unsettled issue in several. A licensing law in Missouri stood to curtail abortions until it was blocked by a judge, pointed out Kimya Forouzan, state policy advisor for the Guttmacher Institute. "They still have a major impact on the ability to provide care," Forouzan said in an email. An even longer drive to get an abortion The Wyoming woman recently seeking a surgical abortion at Wellspring Health Access had to drive more than twice as far from her hometown, more than four hours each way, to have the procedure at the Planned Parenthood in Fort Collins, Colorado. "Even though I support abortion fully, it's not something that I thought I personally would ever do," the woman said, adding that Wellspring Health Access helped cover her costs. "It was a humbling experience," she said. "It just gave me a lot more compassion for people who have experienced abortions as well as people who aren't able to take that route."