On Monday, April 21, retired Laramie District judge Thomas T.C. Campbell placed a preliminary injunction on two Wyoming laws passed by the state legislature earlier this year.
The laws required abortion facilities to have a physician with hospital privileges not more than 10 miles away, required them to be licensed as ambulatory surgical centers, (health care facilities that perform surgeries but are not hospitals), and mandated an ultrasound with a 48-hour waiting period prior to an abortion.
As in previous years after the Wyoming legislature passed laws to protect unborn babies and their mothers, a coalition of pro-abortion advocates, including Wellspring Health Access, an abortion center in Casper, sued the state over the legislation. Campbell cited Wyoming’s constitution that states a competent adult has the right to make his or her own health care decisions in his opinion, and he, like Judge Melissa Owens, who presided over a previous case involving abortion laws in Wyoming, considers abortion to be health care.
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Attorney for the state, Jay Jerde, argued in court that abortion is not health care. However, Campbell disagreed and ruled against the State of Wyoming.
“While this constitutional provision is undoubtedly unique, the State Defendant’s proposition ignores applicable precedent and other provisions of the Constitution. Certainly, the Court … cannot ignore its place in the Constitution and recognition as an inherent right,” Campbell wrote, according to a report from Cowboy State Daily.
Additionally, Campbell wrote, “As Judge Owens found, the ability to make healthcare decisions is a fundamental right, as it was directly written into the State Constitution,” Wyoming Public Radio reported.
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“Fundamentally, Campbell said that the state had failed to show that the clinic regulations and ultrasound requirement are ‘necessary, reasonable or advance a compelling government interest,” the media outlet went on to say.
The injunction allows Wellspring to once again perform abortions, surgical and chemical, after the facility ceased those practices in late February, after Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon signed the legislation requiring abortion centers to become ambulatory surgical centers. Gordon vetoed the ultrasound requirement and the 48-hour waiting period; however, the state legislature overrode his veto.
A physician in Jackson, located in western Wyoming near the Idaho border, will now also be allowed to perform abortions. That doctor, Giovannina Anthony, served as one of the plaintiffs, as did Chelsea’s Fund, a pro-abortion organization that helps pay for abortion procedures for Wyoming women.
Natrona County Right to Life president Ross Schriftman seemed to wonder why the plaintiffs needed the lawsuit if abortions were safe.
In an email to the Associated Press Schriftman said, “The abortion business here in Casper could prove that they are providing safe services by complying with laws. Would that not make their point?”
Natrona is the county where the Wellspring abortion facility is located.
Campbell’s ruling occurred about a week after the Wyoming Supreme Court heard arguments in a separate lawsuit that challenged two laws passed in 2023.
Last year, Owens had ruled that those laws were unconstitutional, and the State appealed her decision to the Wyoming Supreme Court.
That case remains under deliberation by the state’s high court.
