- Wyoming has become the first state in the United States to outlaw abortion pills.
- Violations can result in up to six months in prison and a $9,000 fine.
- Abortion pills are the most often used technique of terminating a pregnancy.
Wyoming has become the first state in the United States to outlaw abortion pills after its governor signed legislation making prescription or selling them unlawful.
Violations can result in up to six months in prison and a $9,000 fine.
Women “upon whom a chemical abortion is performed or attempted” will not be prosecuted.
On the same day that Mark Gordon signed the measure, a Texas court was deliberating on a lawsuit that may essentially prohibit a popular abortion medication statewide.
In the United States, abortion pills are the most often used technique of terminating a pregnancy.
The Wyoming bill, which was passed by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature earlier this month, makes it illegal to “prescribe, dispense, distribute, sell or use any drug for the purpose of procuring or performing an abortion”.
The bill is set to go into force on July 1.
It does not cover morning-after medications or therapy to save a woman’s health or life.
It also exempts treatment of a “natural miscarriage according to currently accepted medical guidelines”.
Wyoming American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) advocacy director Antonio Serrano criticised the bill, saying “a person’s health, not politics, should guide important medical decisions – including the decision to have an abortion”.
Wyoming has only one abortion clinic: the Women’s Health & Family Care Clinic in Jackson.
The state is one of many where legal battles over abortion laws have raged since the Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision legalising abortion.
More than a dozen states have passed near-total abortion prohibitions, many of which have been overturned by the courts.
Mr Gordon, a Republican, also stated that he would allow a separate, broader bill that prohibits abortion except in restricted cases to become law without his signature on Sunday. Both this restriction and the ban on abortion medicines may face legal challenges. It is unclear when a broader prohibition might go into effect.
More states have imposed limits on abortion medicine, such as requiring a doctor’s visit before purchasing a pill.
Meanwhile, in Texas, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointment of former President Donald Trump, is scheduled to decide soon on whether mifepristone, a routinely used abortion pill, should be sold in the United States, in a decision that may limit access to the medicine statewide.
Mifepristone may be administered at home and is used in more than half of all pregnancy terminations in the United States.
The court is due to rule on a complaint brought in Texas by an anti-abortion organisation claiming that the drug’s safety was never adequately researched by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which authorises medications.
The administration of President Joe Biden has maintained that the approval of mifepristone was fully backed by science.
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