Wyoming lawmakers use pro-natalist arguments to justify proposed new partial abortion ban : NPR

When the University of Wyoming’s 25,000-seat football stadium exceeds the population of all but four cities in the state.

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At the anti-abortion March for Life rally in Washington last year, Vice President JD Vance had a clear message.

“So let me tell you very simply, I want more babies in the United States of America,” Vance told a cheering crowd.

As birth rates fall in the United States, prominent conservatives such as Vance are encouraging Americans to have more children. They say it’s crucial to maintaining the nation’s workforce, so there are enough caregivers for an aging population.

Today, these arguments are being used to pass new restrictions on abortion at the state level, including in Wyoming, which recently passed a law banning abortions once there is a “detectable fetal heartbeat.”

According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, it is “clinically inaccurate” to describe what can be heard during an ultrasound early in pregnancy as a heartbeat. An embryo’s heart cells may have detectable electrical activity, but there are no heart valves that can generate the sound people call a heartbeat.

The Wyoming law — which was temporarily blocked in court — prohibits abortions once cardiac activity can be detected, which is usually around the sixth week of pregnancy.

“We are sending the message that children are important and they are the future,” said Republican congresswoman and former nurse Evie Brennan.

“Without a rising population growing here and wanting to stay here, then we will just become a stagnant or aging state,” she added.

Suzanne Bell, a demographer at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said Wyoming’s tactic is unlikely to significantly increase its population.

“Imposing an abortion ban is not going to transform a state’s fertility trajectory,” Bell said.

She added that banning abortion may lead to a population increase in the short term. Wyoming’s neighbor, Idaho, saw one after instituting one of the strictest abortion bans in 2023.

“In absolute terms, that’s about 240 additional births,” Bell said.

But at the same time, researchers discovered Idaho was hemorrhaging health care workers. He now has 35% less OB-GYN than before their law came into force.

In Wyoming, population loss has been a problem for decades. While showing prospective students around the University of Wyoming in Laramie, Claire Lane said there isn’t a lot of industry here.

“I feel like a lot of students don’t necessarily see a ton of opportunities in their field to work here in Wyoming,” said Lane, a senior with purple hair.

She said she plans to stay for graduate school in speech pathology, but will likely leave the state to find work.

“We have a very small population, so a lot of students know they may have to go elsewhere to find a job,” Lane said.

A Harvard Kennedy School 2024 working document said that by the time Wyomingites reach their 30s, nearly two-thirds have left — one of the highest rates in the country. He says many young people are moving to cities, of which Wyoming is few.

“With bigger areas, there are more unique and more creative people,” said Aidan Freeman, a sophomore music major at the University of Wyoming.

Sitting in the student union building, Freeman said he and his partner hope to move to Fort Collins, Colorado, soon.

“Wyoming is very traditionalist in some ways,” Freeman said. “It’s kind of a bubble.”

Harvard researchers have recommended that Wyoming invest in its rural areas, making them more economically diverse and investing in youth housing supply.

Brennan said she knows the partial abortion ban, which she helped pass, is not the complete answer to Wyoming’s growing population. She said the pro-life movement must also start focusing on longer-term solutions.

“We need to send the message that not only are you important in utero, but you’re important on the first day you’re born, just like you are outside the womb,” Brennan said. “And I don’t know if the Legislature has had good, robust conversations about what that looks like.”

Republic of Wyoming State Senator Evie Brennan

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Brennan said she hopes lawmakers will evaluate the effects of the six-week abortion ban, but it depends on whether the courts will leave it in place.

Pro-abortion groups challenged it shortly after its passage. On April 24, a federal district court judge tentatively blocked the lawwhile the litigation continues. This means abortion is legal again in the state after six weeks.

The proceedings will continue at the district court level and the judge will rule on the constitutionality of the law. This decision could then be appealed to the Wyoming Supreme Court. Earlier this year, this court struck two other sweeping abortion bans in the state.