The Cowboy State’s supreme court is bucking a set of pro-life laws, interpreting a conservative statute to allow abortion in the state to continue. The Wyoming Supreme Court handed down a ruling Tuesday declaring both the 2023 Life is a Human Right Act and another provision blocking the prescription of abortion pills to be unconstitutional.

“Although we recognize the State’s interest in protecting the life that an abortion would end, we conclude the State did not meet its burden of justifying the abortion statutes’ restrictions on a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions,” wrote Chief Justice Lynne J. Boomgaarden in the majority’s opinion. “Certainly, the legislature enacts laws that regulate medical care in the state, but when such a law restricts an individual’s constitutional right to make a health care decision, this Court must interpret the constitution and determine whether the restriction is permissible.”

The case, Wyoming v. Johnson, began when the state legislature passed the Life is a Human Right Act in 2023, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and return the issue of abortion to elected legislators. The pro-life law was quickly challenged in court and struck down by Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens in November 2024. Owens determined that the pro-life legislation violated a Wyoming constitutional amendment passed in 2012, in response to the Affordable Care Act (ACA, colloquially known as “Obamacare”) amidst fears that Americans would be forced to purchase different health insurance programs.

The 2012 amendment guarantees that each “competent adult shall have the right to make his or her own health care decisions. The parent, guardian, or legal representative of any other natural person shall have the right to make health care decisions for that person.” However, the provision also adds, “The legislature may determine reasonable and necessary restrictions on the rights granted under this section to protect the health and general welfare of the people or to accomplish the other purposes set forth in the Wyoming Constitution.”

Four of the Wyoming Supreme Court’s five justices ultimately agreed with Owens that the Life is a Human Right Act violated this constitutional amendment, although they diverged in regards to legal reasoning. Three justices applied a strict scrutiny test, while Justice John G. Fenn, in a concurring opinion, wrote that he would have reached the same conclusion as his colleagues but without applying a strict scrutiny test. “I would find [the 2012 constitutional amendment] allows the legislature to enact reasonable and necessary restrictions that do not unduly infringe on the right to make one’s own health care decisions,” he wrote. “Because the State failed to meet its burden of proving the Abortion Statutes meet this standard, I would find the statutes are unconstitutional and affirm the district court’s decision.”

Justice Kari Jo Gray was the sole dissenter, agreeing that the pro-life laws must be examined in light of the constitutional amendment but asserting that the laws “constitute a ‘reasonable and necessary’ restriction by the legislature on the right of a pregnant woman to make her own health care decisions for the purpose of preserving prenatal life at all stages of development.” She continued, “When a fetus is entitled to legal protection is quintessentially a policy judgment about the relative weight of competing interests. In our constitutional system, such judgments belong in the first instance to the people’s elected representatives, who must answer to the people at the ballot box.”

Casting the court’s decision as a political one which should be left to voters and their elected representatives, Gray added, “The Wyoming Legislature decided prenatal life is entitled to protection from conception, and we are not at liberty to second-guess the wisdom or soundness of that policy judgment.”

In comments to The Washington Stand, Joy Stockbauer, a policy analyst at Family Research Council’s Center for Human Dignity, said, “This decision from the Wyoming Supreme Court is a cowardly abdication of the responsibility to protect the rights of all Wyomingites — even the littlest ones.” She explained, “Intentionally killing an unborn child in the womb is not a ‘health care decision’ — it’s a crime against humanity and an attack on the God-given right to life. I can think of nothing more ‘reasonable and necessary’ than protecting an unrepeatable and defenseless human life from being ended.”

Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon (R) also repudiated the state Supreme Court’s decision, calling on the Republican-dominated legislature to draft a constitutional amendment to allow for pro-life laws to be enacted and enforced. “This ruling is profoundly unfortunate and sadly only serves to prolong the ultimate and proper resolution of this issue. This ruling may settle, for now, a legal question, but it does not settle the moral one, nor does it reflect where many Wyoming citizens stand, including myself,” Gordon said in a statement.

“It is time for this issue to go before the people for a vote, and I believe it should go before them this fall. A constitutional amendment taken to the people of Wyoming would trump any and all judicial decisions,” the governor added. “I remain committed to the mission of saving our unborn. Every year that we delay the proper resolution of this issue results in more deaths of unborn children. This is a dilemma of enormous moral and social consequence.”