An Anti-Obamacare Amendment Just Saved Abortion In Wyoming
The Wyoming Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down two abortion restrictions — one of which is the nation’s first targeted ban on abortion pills — ruling that they violated the state constitution.
Specifically, the 4-1 majority found that the laws violated the constitution’s “right of access to health care” provision: “Every competent adult has the right to make his or her own health care decisions.” »
Voters passed this amendment in 2012 to guard against real or imagined facets of the Affordable Care Act: fears that patients would not be able to choose their own doctors, that “death boards” would deny coverage to elderly and disabled patients, and that Wyoming would be part of a single-payer system. Wyoming’s attorney general called it a “message” amendment to express “the state’s dissatisfaction with the controversial federal Affordable Care Act.”
On Tuesday, this anti-Obamacare amendment saved abortion care in the state.
Chief Justice Lynne Boomgaarden wrote for the majority that the amendment requires that anti-abortion laws survive strict scrutiny — they must be as narrowly tailored as possible to serve a legitimate state interest. The state made little attempt to show that the bans were narrowly tailored, she wrote, arguing instead that abortion is not health care, that abortion is not a woman’s personal medical decision, and that the laws should not be subject to strict scrutiny. The majority disagreed on all points.
Boomgaarden was particularly dismissive of Wyoming’s argument that the laws would actually protect women, a common anti-abortion refrain.
“The State claimed that the provisions furthered its compelling interest in protecting women’s health, but it failed to present evidence demonstrating that the restrictions actually protected women’s health when an abortion was necessary to save a woman’s life,” she wrote. “Instead, the laws have needlessly interfered with women’s rights to obtain a timely abortion to save their lives. »
This is particularly true in the case of pregnant women with mental illnesses, who the bans would not have exempted. She wrote that the laws “could put a woman with a diagnosed mental health issue in mortal danger by not allowing her to exercise her fundamental right to make her own health care decision and to have an abortion.”
Justice John Fenn wrote a concurring opinion, siding with the majority’s conclusions but breaking with its decision to revise the laws under strict review. Justice Kari Jo Gray dissented.
Tuesday’s is the last episode of a common scenario since Dobbs: Red state constitutions thwart abortion restrictions passed by their largely Republican legislatures. The Kansas Supreme Court has repeatedly struck down abortion restrictions, finding them to violate the constitutional guarantee of personal autonomy.
Some states, including Montana and Missouri, have strengthened this constitutional guarantee after Dobbsby adopting amendments that explicitly guarantee the right to abortion.
Wyoming’s constitutional amendment, although passed as a rebuke to legislation signed by a Democratic president, inadvertently became an equally effective shield against abortion restrictions in the state.
Read the decision here:
