Republican Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon signed legislation Friday banning the use or prescription of abortion pills, making it the first state to ban these drugs.
The law was passed by the state’s GOP-controlled legislature earlier this month.
The bill includes a provision that would make it illegal “to prescribe, dispense, distribute, sell, or use any drug for the purpose of obtaining or performing an abortion.”
The morning-after pill, a contraceptive taken shortly after sex but before a woman can confirm her pregnancy, is exempt from the ban.
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Wyoming was the first state to ban abortion pills. ((AP Photo/Allen G. Breed, file))
There are also exceptions when treatment is required to protect a woman from “an imminent danger seriously endangering her life or health” or “a natural miscarriage according to currently accepted medical guidelines”.
Violators of the new law face a criminal offense punishable by up to six months in prison and a fine of up to $9,000.
A woman “on whom a chemical abortion is performed or attempted shall not be prosecuted,” the measure said.
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Republican Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon signed legislation Friday prohibiting the use or prescription of medicated abortion pills. (Rhianna Gelhart/The Wyoming Tribune Eagle via AP, file)
Gordon said he is also allowing a separate law to ban abortion procedures without his signature being passed. The measure passed by the legislature prohibits the procedure except when necessary to protect the health and life of the mother, in cases of rape or incest, or to terminate a pregnancy in which doctors determine a fatal abnormality in the fetus.
Since the Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court in June in 1973, there have been a number of legal challenges to abortion laws in the United States. The High Court’s decision allowed states to make their own abortion access laws.
Since the Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court in June in 1973, there have been a number of legal challenges to abortion laws in the United States. (Joshua Comins/Fox News Digital)
Gordon acknowledged that pro-abortion advocates who support Wyoming’s “trigger” abortion ban after it came into effect following the repeal of Roe v. Wade filed a lawsuit to preemptively block the new abortion pill law.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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