Abortion clinic opens in deep-red Wyoming despite state bans
America’s unlikeliest abortion clinic has opened in its reddest state. CASPER, Wyo. — The new Wellspring Health Access clinic is unremarkable inside: Walls painted in soft hues, Ms. magazines in the waiting room, cabinets filled with medical supplies. But the story behind those white cabinets is anything but ordinary. The original ones were destroyed in May 2022, when an arsonist torched the facility shortly before it was to begin seeing patients. The damage set back Wellspring’s opening by a year — and sent an unmistakable message about the hostile terrain outside what may be the unlikeliest abortion clinic in the country.
Wyoming Enacts New Abortion Clinic Rules
Gov. Mark Gordon signed legislation that will place new and more onerous regulations on Wyoming clinics that perform abortions, potentially forcing the state’s lone provider of in-clinic abortions to close its doors. Casper’s Wellspring Health Access is the one facility in Wyoming that provides in-clinic abortions. House Bill 42, “Regulation of surgical abortions,” requires facilities that provide abortions to be licensed as ambulatory surgical centers, which are health care facilities that perform surgeries but are not hospitals.
Effective immediately, the bill also requires clinic doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital not more than 10 miles away. Key requirements and impacts of the new law include:
- Licensing: Requires facilities that provide abortions to be licensed as ambulatory surgical centers, which are health care facilities that perform surgeries but are not hospitals.
- Oversight: The classification comes with Department of Health inspections, rules and regulations, such as building codes.
- Admitting Privileges: Clinic doctors performing abortions must have admitting privileges at a hospital not more than 10 miles away.
- Goal: Julie Burkhart stated, “this law directly targets our clinic with the explicit goal of forcing us out of business.”
Legal Challenges and Constitutional Context
“Make no mistake—this law directly targets our clinic with the explicit goal of forcing us out of business,” Julie Burkhart, Wellspring founder and president, said in a press release Thursday. Wellspring would be filing a lawsuit “seeking a restraining order to stop this unjust law from being enacted,” Burkhart said. Burkhart called the law “blatantly unconstitutional” and “in direct opposition to the Wyoming Constitution, which enumerates the rights of the people of Wyoming to make their own health care decisions without government intervention.”
In November, a Teton County judge ruled Wyoming’s abortion bans are unconstitutional. “Abortion currently remains legal in Wyoming, thus the need to regulate abortion,” Worland Republican Rep. Martha Lawley, the bill’s main sponsor, told lawmakers this session. Wellspring is also among the plaintiffs who sued the state over its abortion bans.