Breaking: Wyoming Supreme Court Rules Abortion is Healthcare

The court struck down two state bans

Abortion rights protest in Jackson, WY (2022)

I couldn’t be more thrilled to write this sentence: the Wyoming Supreme Court ruled today to protect abortion rights, striking down the state’s two (yes, two!) abortion bans. The judges held that the bans violate the state constitution, which protects people’s right to make their own healthcare decisions.

Just as important, the court states plainly that abortion is healthcare. At a moment when conservatives across the country are trying to divorce abortion from medicine—insisting that “pregnancy isn’t a disease” and that abortion is never medically necessary—this ruling could prove vital for all of us, not just those in Wyoming.

First, some background: After Roe was overturned, Wyoming Republicans passed two abortion bans—one that banned abortion generally, and another specific to abortion medication. Abortion providers and advocates, including those from Wellspring Health Access and Chelsea’s Fund, challenged the laws. They pointed to a 2012 constitutional amendment passed by Wyoming voters, ensuring people’s right to make their own healthcare decisions.

In 2024, a Teton County judge agreed, ruling that the laws violated the state constitution. Judge Melissa Owens said that the bans “impede the fundamental right to make health care decisions for an entire class of people, pregnant women.”

But the state appealed, arguing that abortion isn’t healthcare because “it’s not restoring the woman’s body from pain, physical disease or sickness.”¹

The bans were blocked while the case made its way through the courts, but conservative lawmakers were desperate to stop anyone from getting care. So they passed new TRAP laws aimed at shuttering the state’s lone abortion clinic, Wellspring Health Access. These laws were blocked, too.

Now, here we are—with Wyoming’s Supreme Court rejecting Republicans’ argument and protecting abortion rights. Noting that the state failed to cite any legal precedent suggesting abortion isn’t healthcare, the judges pointed to the Mirriam-Webster definition of health: “the condition of being sound in body, mind, or spirit; especially: freedom from physical disease or pain.” From their ruling:

“Thus, pregnancy comes with physical and emotional challenges and risks that affect ‘the condition of being sound in body, mind, or spirit.’ …We, therefore, conclude that the phrase ‘health care’ includes abortion care and that the decision whether to terminate or continue a pregnancy is a ‘health care decision.’”

The court also points out that the state focused only on the part of the definition related to restoring someone from disease or pain, conveniently ignoring the rest. Which makes perfect sense—because when have Republicans ever given a shit about women’s body, mind, or spirit?

Again, I’m curious to see if this ruling will prove helpful to abortion rights advocates beyond Wyoming. Because the claim that abortion isn’t healthcare really is everywhere right now: it drives Republican attempts to redefine ‘abortion’, to codify fake medical terms like ‘maternal fetal separation’—and is behind the truly terrifying move to do away with abortion ban exceptions for women’s lives.

Some anti-abortion activists have even started to call life-saving abortions “elective.” In 2024, for example, I reported on a paper published by leading anti-abortion researchers that argued “there is no disease, illness or condition for which an induced abortion has been determined to be a standard of care”—and claimed there is “no justification” for health- or life-saving abortions.

All of which is to say: the more prepared we are for this bullshit argument, the better.

In the meantime, let’s get back to what’s most important: Giving huge congratulations to the incredible Wyoming activists and healthcare providers who’ve been fighting this legal battle for years. Thank you for all the amazing work, that you for protecting abortion rights—and I hope you take the time to celebrate today.

1. Wyoming Republicans were so obsessed with divorcing abortion from healthcare that they tried to pass a law codifying as much—but the bill was written in such a way that it would have outlawed surgeries and chemotherapy.