Mark Gordon signed a bill Friday night that prohibits abortion pills in the state and allowed a separate measure that restricts abortion from being law without his signature.
Gordon expressed concern that the Life is a Human Right Act, which is dubbed the Life is a Human Right Act, will result in a lawsuit that will delay any resolution to the constitutionality of the abortion ban in Wyoming. He noted 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 resolved, and that is best done with a vote of the people, Gordon, a Republican, said in a statement.
The Wyoming governor snubbed abortion pills after they took center stage this week in Texas, where a federal judge raised questions about a Christian group s effort to overturn the decades-old U.S. approval of a leading abortion drug, mifepristone.
In a statement, Wyoming ACLU advocacy director Antonio Serrano criticized the governor's decision to sign the law.
Serrano said that health, not politics, should guide important medical decisions, including the decision to have an abortion.
A two-pill combination of mifepristone and another drug is the most common form of abortion in the U.S.
Medication abortion became the preferred method of 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.
Fifteen states already have limited access to abortion pills, including six that require an in-person physician visit. The laws could withstand court challenges, states have long had authority over how doctors, pharmacists and other providers practice medicine.
The rules for telemedicine consultations used to prescribe medications are also set by the states. That means health providers in states with restrictions on abortion pills may 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. Since the reversal of Roe in June, abortion restrictions have been up to states and the landscape has shifted quickly. Thirteen states are now enforcing bans on abortion at any point in pregnancy, and one more, Georgia, bans it once cardiac activity can be detected, or about six weeks gestation.
In Arizona, Indiana, Montana, Ohio, South Carolina, Utah and Wyoming, the courts have enforcement of abortion bans or deep restrictions. The Idaho courts have forced the state to allow abortions during medical emergencies.