New laws complicate Wyoming's abortion situation as bans set to be
argued in state Supreme Court
[April 14, 2025]
By MEAD GRUVER
CASPER, Wyo. (AP) — 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 (16 kilometers). 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.
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Wellspring Health Access, Wyoming's only abortion clinic, is seen
Tuesday, April 8, 2025, in Casper, Wyo. (AP Photo/Mead Gruver)
 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.”
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