(CNN) As the war over abortion drugs rages across the country, Wyoming on Friday banned abortion drugs in what NARAL Pro-Choice America called a “first of its kind” law, ending abortion almost completely. enacted a law prohibiting it.
Republican Governor Mark Gordon signed into law a bill making it a felony to prescribe, sell, or use “any drug for the purpose of procuring or performing an abortion.” A violator could face up to six months in prison and he could be fined $9,000.
The law will come into force on July 1st.
Medical abortion is already included in overall abortion bans in many states. Some states have restricted telemedicine abortion care and restricted access to medical abortions.
Leading abortion rights advocates said Wyoming’s explicit ban on the pill was unique.
NARAL Pro Choice America President Mini Timaraju said in a statement on Saturday, “At a time when anti-selection extremists are trying to do everything they can to ensure a nationwide ban on abortion, they let go.” “There is no stone,” he said.
wider field of view
Meanwhile, a federal judge in Texas may soon rule on a lawsuit seeking to overturn FDA approval of a drug used in medical abortions. The lawsuit seeks to block nationwide access to mifepristone, the first of his two drugs used in the process.
According to NARAL, if the lawsuit is successful, an additional 40 million women of reproductive age will be denied access to the drug. This is in addition to the 24.5 million women of reproductive age who live in states where abortion is prohibited, and those who “can become pregnant but do not identify as female.”
The FDA approved mifepristone in 2000. In 2020, medical abortions accounted for more than half of all abortions in the United States, according to the Guttmacher Institute, another abortion rights advocacy group.
Legal battles over abortion have raged across the country since last year the US Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade judgment that guaranteed abortion rights.
NARAL said since the ruling, “already 17 states and numbers have banned abortion.”
Last week, Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom of California said he would stop working with Walgreens, a retail drugstore chain that said it would no longer sell abortion pills in 21 Republican-controlled states.
‘Life is a Human Rights Act’ Becomes Law in Wyoming
The governor of Wyoming has allowed a second anti-abortion bill to pass without his signature. A more drastic law bans abortion under most circumstances, imposes a maximum sentence of five years in prison and he is fined $20,000.
The Life is a Human Rights Act allows exceptions for incest, sexual assault, cases in which a pregnant person’s life is endangered, and cases of “fatal fetal abnormalities.”
“Abortion, as defined by this law, is not healthcare,” the law states, citing the Wyoming Constitution. It is to let
The law comes into force on Sunday.
“We expressed concern that this new law (HB 152) would only lead to new lawsuits that would delay resolution of the constitutionality of Wyoming’s abortion ban,” Gordon said.
“Personal health, not politics, should guide major medical decisions, including abortion decisions,” said Antonio Serrano, ACLU advocacy director for Wyoming, in a statement. said.
CNN’s Dave Alsup, Paradise Afshar, Annette Choi and Will Mullery contributed to this report.
