A Wyoming judge temporarily blocked the state’s law banning most abortions April 24, ruling that the abortion-rights advocates challenging it sufficiently showed it may harm them.
Cowboy State Daily reported that the Human Heartbeat Act had protected life after the detection of a fetal heartbeat — usually occurring around six weeks of pregnancy — in nearly every case, only making exceptions for health emergencies. The law was the fourth of its kind to be enacted by Wyoming’s Legislature and subsequently blocked in court since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.
The ruling from Natrona County District Court Judge Dan Forgey temporarily halts the law from being enforced while the challenge continues, FOX News reported. It had gone into effect in March after receiving Republican Gov. Mark Gordon’s signature.
According to the outlet, Forgey ruled the challengers, which include an abortion facility, “made a sufficient showing of irreparable injury” and said the state “did not persuasively argue otherwise.” That aspect of his decision referenced abortionists’’ claim that they face “risk of criminal prosecution, imprisonment, and loss of licensure” because the law criminalized abortions after six weeks. They also said that the heartbeat law was too vague, required them to perform “medically unnecessary procedures” to determine whether a fetal heartbeat was present, and restricts providers from sending women abortion pills through telehealth appointments.
In his decision, Forgey pointed to a January ruling from the Wyoming Supreme Court that designated abortion as health care, with access protected by the state constitution, according to Cowboy State Daily. Based on the Supreme Court’s holding, he said the activists “made a sufficient showing” that they will successfully overturn the law.
Cowboy State Daily reported that the attorney general’s office has argued the state’s duty to protect unborn life should take precedence over a constitutional right to health care that has been interpreted to include abortion.