LINK Wyoming governor signs measure prohibiting abortion pills -- ABC News
Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon has signed into law the nation’s first explicit ban on abortion pills since they became the predominant choice for abortion in the U.S. in recent years
Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon has signed into law the nation's first explicit ban on abortion pills since they became the predominant choice for abortion in the U.S. in recent years.
Gordon, a Republican, signed the bill Friday night while allowing a separate measure restricting abortion to become law without his signature.
The pills are already banned in 13 states that have blanket bans on all forms of abortion, and 15 states already have limited access to abortion pills. Until now, however, no state had passed a law specifically prohibiting such pills, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights.
A group seeking to open an abortion and women's health clinic in Casper said it was evaluating legal options.
“We are dismayed and outraged that these laws would eradicate access to basic health care, including safe, effective medication abortion,” Wellspring Health Access President Julie Burkhart said in a statement Saturday.
The clinic, which a firebombing prevented from opening last year, is one of two nonprofits suing to block an earlier Wyoming abortion ban. No arrests have been made, and organizers say the clinic is tentatively scheduled to open in April, depending on abortion's legal status in Wyoming then.
The Republican governor’s decision on the two measures comes after the issue of access to abortion pills took center stage this week in a Texas court. A federal judge there raised questions about a Christian group’s effort to overturn the decades-old U.S. approval of a leading abortion drug, mifepristone.
Medication abortions became the preferred method for ending pregnancy in the U.S. even before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the ruling that protected the right to abortion for nearly five decades. A two-pill combination of mifepristone and another drug is the most common form of abortion in the U.S.
Wyoming’s ban on abortion pills would take effect in July, pending any legal action that could potentially delay that. The implementation date of the sweeping legislation banning all abortions that Gordon allowed to go into law is not specified in the bill.
With the earlier ban tied up in court, abortion currently remains legal in the state up to viability, or when the fetus could survive outside the womb.
In a statement, Gordon expressed concern that the latter law, dubbed the Life is a Human Right Act would result in a lawsuit that will “delay any resolution to the constitutionality of the abortion ban in Wyoming.”
He noted that earlier in the day, plaintiffs in an ongoing lawsuit filed a challenge to the new law in the event he did not issue a veto.
“I believe this question needs to be decided as soon as possible so that the issue of abortion in Wyoming can be finally resolved, and that is best done with a vote of the people,” Gordon said in a statement.
In a statement, Wyoming ACLU advocacy director Antonio Serrano criticized Gordon’s decision to sign the ban on abortion pills.
“A person’s health, not politics, should guide important medical decisions — including the decision to have an abortion,” Serrano said.
Of the 15 states that have limited access to the pills, six require an in-person physician visit. Those laws could withstand court challenges; states have long had authority over how physicians, pharmacists and other providers practice medicine.
States also set the rules for telemedicine consultations used to prescribe medications. Generally, that means health providers in states with restrictions on abortion pills could face penalties, such as fines or license suspension, for trying to send pills through the mail.
Women have already been traveling across state lines to places where abortion pill access is easier. That trend is expected to increase.
Since the reversal of Roe in June, abortion restrictions have been up to states, and the landscape has shifted quickly. Thirteen states now enforce bans on abortion at any point in pregnancy, and another, Georgia, bans it once cardiac activity can be detected, or at about six weeks’ gestation.
Courts have put on hold enforcement of abortion bans or deep restrictions in Arizona, Indiana, Montana, Ohio, South Carolina, Utah and Wyoming. Idaho courts have forced the state to allow abortions during medical emergencies.
16
Enjoy being online again!
Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.Create your free account
14 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.The below is important information about abortion. Now before we get all upset let's remember when miscarriages were also called abortions but the religious didn't like that and changed meanings. Because god in all his glory performs more abortions than any human does. There are thousands of "miscarriages" a day. All day long. For the religious they can look to god for an answer. Yes, abortions should be safe and legal: god says.
In case young people have no clue this is about back alley abortions: "We present a 24-year-old female with a 21-week twin gestation who presented to the emergency department with complications of an attempted self-induced abortion. Her complicated clinical course included sepsis, chorioamnionitis, fetal demise, and a total abdominal hysterectomy with bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy for complications of endomyometritis". [ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]
A metal coat hanger can’t speak, but it can send a message. Long a symbol of the dangers faced by people seeking to end pregnancies in the years before Roe v. Wade, coat hangers stand in for a whole inventory of physical horrors, most of which never involved coat hangers, specifically. Over the past few weeks, protesters have mailed hangers to the Supreme Court. [fivethirtyeight.com]
Around 73 million induced abortions take place worldwide each year. Six out of 10 (61%) of all unintended pregnancies, and 3 out of 10 (29%) of all pregnancies, end in induced abortion (1).
[who.int]
Without safe and legal abortions death is hovering nearby.
K9JetLee999
Level 5
Apr 3, 2023
2
Just go online and type in'abortion pills' you get pages and pages of places to order them. Mostly on the most popular website (without mentioning names to get them shut down.) Men, they think they're so fuking smart. Their teenage daughters know where to find the pills so they should devote more time on finding masterbating men who kill thousands of potential children in bed, in the shower, in bathrooms across the globe.I bet any money Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon masterbates.
K9JetLee999
Level 5
Apr 1, 2023
1
I live in Wyoming and it's really disgusting to see this. As a state that likes to boast its 'feedoms'--freedom to carry the most prominent, there doesn't seem to be any 'freedoms' for women here, especially when it comes to making their own healthcare decisions. Nope, they just want their women barefoot and pregnant here, or so it seems. So glad I'm past childbearing age, but I really feel bad for my younger friends and coworkers.
BlackDove
Level 7
Mar 24, 2023
1
How are they supposed to prosecute women who get back alley abortions and die from bleeding to death or infection? That's what they're driving women to do. Drag the body up to the chair near the judge and condemn them for not wanting to be pregnant? GUILTY!!
K9Kohle
Level 6
Mar 20, 2023
2
Sad to learn, since I doubt it's what the people of Wyoming want deep down, though they night profess to be pro-life during church on Sundays.
I performed the marriage for one of the losing candidates for the Wyoming Governor race a few years ago. Red state, obviously running as republican, but he was seemingly open minded about a lot from what I gleaned from my conversations with him. Although a good politician likely knows how to seem likable to those who think differently, at least they used to be. Now it's more of a "in your face" attitude.
I wonder what his thoughts would have been on the abortion pill issue. It didn't come up in my conversations with him in 2018 - since at that time the ruling for Roe v Wade was still the law of the land.
Julie808
Level 8
Mar 20, 2023
2
I never really took sides on this issue until recently. A young coworker has taken me on as her confidant. At 25 years old, with both parents dead, she turned to me. She recently found out she was pregnant, and had a serious conversation with her boyfriend. They barely make enough money to live on as it is. She told me how much she and her boyfriend had discussed their situation, and how they didn't want their child to grow up living in a lawnmower shed. (No exaggerating) She tried hiding tears when she asked me if I would think worse of her if they decided on abortion. I told her she had my full support no matter what they chose. They want a child, but don't want it living in the poverty they have known all their lives. I know... The young 'screw' up, but this couple is thinking about the future of the kid. Personally, I'm not worried about kids. I don't want to change the diapers, hear the screaming in the middle of the night, or have them puke on me.
Kudos to this young couple for being so mature.
BOBdammit
Level 6
Mar 19, 2023
6
It's none of the Government bussness on what goes in or out of our bodies.
Its our legal, constitutional and autonomy rights to our own body
Castlepaloma
Level 8
Mar 19, 2023
3
I don't get it either, just because some idiots voted them into office doesn't mean they need a big brother pushing them around telling us what we can or cannot do with our own PERSONAL decisions about our bodies. Fk em all.
Banning abortions seems to be some kind of craze to get votes. Clearly, they don't care about women's biological rights or planets over population problem.
freedom41
Level 9
Mar 19, 2023
6
These christofascists are more concerned with the control of women, ethic groups, and children to recreate a slave state!!!
Socialism for the wealthy their corporations and the politicians who they own, while the rest of are under their control with their so called free market they let us live under!!!
of-the-mountain
Level 9
Mar 19, 2023
2
Some bored right wing immoral scientist is going to come up with a way to track pregnancies and punish the women for having an abortion. Put a tattoo on it somehow. I betcha they're that fkn crazy.
The state of Wyoming has a population smaller than the city of Washington DC (Wyoming: 576,851.......DC: 712,816). Yet the people of DC have no representation in Congress. If we were to make DC a state,...
Flyingsaucesir
Level 8
Mar 19, 2023
5
Enjoy being online again!
Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.Create your free account
Share this post
Categories
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.