State Courts and Constitutions

Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon on Monday signed a law banning abortions once embryonic cardiac activity can be detected—typically around six weeks of pregnancy—making Wyoming the fifth state with such a restriction, alongside Florida, Georgia, Iowa and South Carolina. The measure includes exceptions only to preserve a woman from “imminent peril” that endangers her life or health, and pointedly omits exceptions for rape or incest, a gap Gordon acknowledged in a letter to lawmakers as a departure from his own stated pro‑life stance. Gordon also warned the statute is “very likely” to trigger new litigation, noting the Wyoming Supreme Court struck down a broader near‑total abortion ban in January and calling this another “likely fragile legal effort” that may not produce “lasting, durable policy.” Wellspring Health Access, the state’s only clinic providing both procedural and medication abortions, immediately pledged to challenge the law in court and began referring patients further along in pregnancy to out‑of‑state providers, underscoring the practical effect on access in a rural state where its lone clinic was firebombed in 2022. The move deepens the post‑Roe legal patchwork in which 13 states now bar abortion throughout pregnancy and several others have six‑week bans, and it sets up another test of how far state courts will allow lawmakers to go in restricting reproductive care under state constitutions.