Wyoming passes law banning sale and use of abortion pills

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – Wyoming has passed a first-of-its-kind law explicitly banning the sale and use of abortion pills that are commonly prescribed and taken to terminate early pregnancies, the Associated Press reports.

Making Wyoming the first state to ban abortion pills explicitly, the new law was signed by Republican Governor Mark Gordon on Friday and goes into effect on July 1.

Even before the US Supreme Court reversed the federal right to abortion by overturning Roe v Wade last year, the two-pill combination of mifepristone and another drug had been the most common method of abortion in the United States, AP reports.

The Wyoming law makes it a criminal offense to “prescribe, dispense, distribute, sell or use any drug for the purpose of procuring or performing an abortion,” AP reports. The woman “upon whom a chemical abortion is performed or attempted” will not be criminally prosecuted. Violation of the law carries a sentence of up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $9,000. The law does not include the morning-after pill, or cases in which treatment is required because a woman’s health or life is in danger.

Notably, the Wyoming law was passed as a federal court in Texas considers a case brought by a conservative Christian group seeking to impose a nationwide ban on mifepristone. A ruling by Trump appointee Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk is expected to rule in that case imminently.

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