Wyoming Senate Adds Two Exceptions to Abortion Bill

On Wednesday, the Wyoming Senate approved an amendment to House Bill 92, a bill that would ban abortion if the Supreme Court overrules Roe v. Wade.

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The bill that is close to being passed is similar to ones passed in other states across the country that would make abortion illegal should the Supreme Court strike down Roe v. Wade, which may be possible with a 6-3 conservative court, and the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.

The amendment to the bill, filed by Senator Cale Case, allows abortions in the case of incest or sexual assault and was passed on a vote of 15-14, with one excused.

Speaking against the amendment, Senator Lynn Hutchings said that both sexual assault and incest don't justify having an abortion.

"Historically, sexual assaults take years in the courts to process. This isn't just a matter of saying I've had a sexual assault and tomorrow that rapist is going to jail," Hutchings said. "Normally, the rapist doesn't go to jail, or if he does it's for a reduced sentence, so he may not even get a rape conviction. And by that time the young lady could have had two or three children. Incest and this may sound amazing to you, may be the only way for a young lady to be able to prove that she has been molested. Taking away that evidence by taking away a life may mar that lady for life. Sentencing an innocent human to death just because of the way they were conceived, scientifically, via DNA, it proves that this body in the woman is a distinct human being."

Senator Chris Rothfuss said that the amendment is necessary to give women some control over their body.

"I think everybody here understands, that I believe in choice," Rothfuss said. "But in trying to respect at least the most egregious situations, where an individual is traumatized, deeply, by the pregnancy they experience, recognizing that individual's right to individual autonomy, to control over that woman's body, to me seems even more justified."

The bill, along with Senate File 83, prohibiting abortion drugs, and Senate File 51, banning trans women from participating in female sports, both of which failed introduction in the House, are all opposed by the Wyoming ACLU.

For House Bill 92, the ACLU of Wyoming opposes it for the impact it would have on a woman's ability to control her body.

Janna Farley, Communications Director for the ACLU of Wyoming, said that even with the amendment, they are still opposed to the bill as a whole.

Senator John Kolb filed an amendment soon after that would repeal Case's amendment.