(NewsNation) — Wyoming’s highest court restored abortion access using a law voters originally passed in 2012 to block the Affordable Care Act.
In a ruling Tuesday, the Wyoming Supreme Court struck down two abortion restrictions, including an explicit ban on abortion pills, citing an adult’s right to make their own health care decisions under the state constitution.
That amendment was approved in 2012 to push back against the Affordable Care Act, and while the justices acknowledged that it wasn’t written with abortion in mind, they stated that it wasn’t their place to “add words” to the Constitution.
“In deciding what that language means in this case, all five Wyoming Supreme Court justices agreed that the decision whether to terminate or continue a pregnancy is a woman’s own health care decision protected by that amendment,” a summary of the ruling stated.
Wyoming Supreme Court Justice John Fenn stated that the “state failed to prove the 2023 abortion bans were “reasonable and necessary restrictions on the right to make one’s own health care decisions.”
While striking down the laws, the justices noted that “lawmakers could ask Wyoming voters to consider a constitutional amendment that would more clearly address this issue.”
Former President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law to expand health insurance access in 2010. Fearing that law would encumber individual choice with federal mandates, Wyoming voter elected to pass an amendment guaranteeing every competent adult the right to make their own health-care decisions.
One of the laws struck down Tuesday banned nearly all abortions except to save a woman’s life or in cases of rape or incest, and the other explicitly banned abortion pills.
The case was brought by the state’s only abortion clinic, Wellspring Health Access, and other individuals against a 2023 law that enacted a near-total abortion ban.
The group argued that the laws violated the 2012 state constitutional amendment.
The ruling affirms abortion as “essential health care” that shouldn’t be subject to government interference, Wellspring Health Access President Julie Burkhart, who brought the suit, said in a statement.
Attorneys for the state argued that abortion isn’t health care and therefore cannot violate the Wyoming constitution.
Republican Gov. Mark Gordon called the decision disappointing and urged lawmakers meeting this winter to pass a constitutional amendment banning abortion to put before voters this fall.
“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. It is time for this issue to go before the people for a vote,” Gordon said.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.