The same Teton County judge who tossed Wyoming’s two abortion bans last year dismissed on Friday a separate lawsuit filed in Jackson that sought to block two new Wyoming abortion laws, saying the case belonged in Natrona County, home to the affected Wellspring Health Access clinic.
Ruling from the bench after a hearing that lasted more than 90 minutes, 9th District Judge Melissa Owens said that “any injury that occurred, occurred in Natrona County.” The ruling means that Wyoming women who have not had access to abortion services since the de facto ban went into effect Feb. 28 will have to wait until the case is presumably refiled and then considered by a different judge.
In the five days after one law went into effect, Wellspring referred 56 patients to other clinics for abortion-related services, almost all of them out of state, according to court papers.
Two doctors, two abortion care providers and an individual woman filed a nearly identical suit in Natrona County when one of the new laws went into effect, challenging its constitutionality. That law imposes a series of new regulations on abortion clinics by mandating they be licensed as “ambulatory surgical centers.” A second, which went into effect days later, requires abortion patients to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound and a 48-hour waiting period before receiving abortion medications.
The plaintiffs sought emergency court action on requests for a temporary restraining order and an injunction. But when a Natrona County judge did not respond to their emergency request in what they perceived as a timely manner, they dismissed their case there and filed the carbon-copy action in Teton County.
“We could not get any type of response” 12 days after filing the action, five business days after the last communication from the court, said Marci Bramlet, an attorney representing the plaintiff doctors. One of her clients, Dr. Giovannina Anthony, has an OBGYN clinic in Jackson and refers clients to Wellspring, the only clinic in the state that provides procedural abortions.
Wellspring has ceased offering those services because of the new laws and has turned away at least three clients from Teton County, Bramlet said. She rejected an argument by state Senior Attorney General John Woykovsky that the group was “forum shopping.”
In November, Owens decided two other anti-abortion law challenges — those involved outright bans — in favor of nearly the same suite of plaintiffs.
The Teton County filing was “not because of what we were hearing,” Bramlet said, but “because we were hearing nothing.” Her clients did not believe their case was being taken seriously and, meantime, “injury is ongoing and could be catastrophic.”
Woykovsky said Natrona County District Judge Dan Forgey couldn’t act until he received proof that required court papers had been served on defendants there. Owens appeared to agree there was no foot-dragging on Forgey’s part, that the doctors had waited only a few days before dismissing one suit and filing the other.
Regardless of Judge Forgey’s timing, Bramlet said her clients had a right to dismiss their action as they saw fit and refile it anywhere in Wyoming, given that the new laws cover the entire state. Although Woykovsky’s court pleading was for a change of venue back to Natrona County, Owens saw it as a request for dismissal and acted thusly.
The proper venue is critical for successful lawsuits. I hope that the judge in Casper puts our constitutional rights before his own personal beliefs.
Giving respect to both sides of this issue. However the rule of law stated in our Wyoming constitution Article 1, Section 38 Right of health care access.
(a) Each competent adult shall have the right to make his
or her own health care decisions. The parent, guardian or legal
representative of any other natural person shall have the right
to make health care decisions for that person.
(b) Any person may pay, and a health care provider may
accept, direct payment for health care without imposition of
penalties or fines for doing so.
(c) The legislature may determine reasonable and necessary
restrictions on the rights granted under this section to protect
the health and general welfare of the people or to accomplish
the other purposes set forth in the Wyoming Constitution.
(d) The state of Wyoming shall act to preserve these
rights from undue governmental infringement.
It appears women are not equal in the eye of the law.
The Equality State is lacking equality in regards to abortion.
How does making the clinic a surgical clinic support “abortion isn’t Healthcare”?
Appears to me that they have now agreed it is health care.
Health care for whom? Certainly NOT the baby!
QUIT KILLING BABIES!!! They are our future!!! Women were put on earth to continue the species. They are our future doctor’s dentist truck driver teachers police officers fireman IT person journalists. Quit killing our future. Who do you thank on MOTHERS DAY?
What a barrel of nonsense you peddle. Almost taken directly from the Christian holy book. Who appointed people like you to dictate our behavior? On a severely overpopulated planet, abortion, vasectomy, and tubal ligation should be encouraged, or there will be NO future for human monkeys. Quit dictating your nonsense to others, much as you may love emulating his royal idiocy, king Donald.
“Dictating behavior”????
Are you allowed to steal, murder, etc.?
Abortion is the ending of a distinctly separate human life, and is not simply a “woman’s body”.
Nonsense. A fetus is NOT a human. Do you have any memories (REAL memories, not wishful thinking)of the time before you were born? Your religion-based “argument” is tiring after a lifetime of hearing it repeated ad nauseum by a bunch of “true believers”…whose main goal is domination of others, especially women. Religion and state is supposed to be separate here in freedomlandia.
Just great. Another out of touch guy weighing in on women’ health care. And, my mother would’ve said “it’s the woman’s decision, not the sperm donor’s”.
The child growing inside of a woman’s uterus is made up of half of the “sperm donor’s” DNA. That child is distinctly separate with different DNA than the mother. The mother and the father are each 50-50 percent co-creators of that human life.
Ending that human life is NOT “healthcare”.
Only a man would say “Women are put on this earth to continue the species.” Maybe if a woman can’t have an abortion when it is detrimental to her health, or any other reason that makes it impractical for her to have a baby, the man who gave her the baby should have a vasectomy. (I’m being facetious) Men have no right to make decisions about women. And as far as having babies global population is increasing, so never fear that we will run out of children. I am tired of men self righteously trying to force women to face pregnancy when it is the worse thing she should do. Men are as guilty as women when an unplanned child is conceived, yet they face no consequences. Maybe if abortion is outlawed, a new law should force the father to help support the child, even if it was a one time fling.