A federal judge paused Wyoming’s first-in-the-nation ban on medicated abortion pills on Thursday, citing an ongoing lawsuit over the law’s constitutionality.
The ban, signed by the state’s governor in March, was set to be implemented on July 1.
The law concerns two abortion pills, one of which, mifepristone, had its FDA approval challenged earlier this year. In April, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that mifepristone can still be distributed pending that challenge.
Wyoming’s near-total ban on abortion procedures has also been challenged, and the two suits have now been combined. Arguments over the legality of abortion in the state mostly center on a 2012 constitutional amendment giving Wyoming’s a right to make their own health care decisions, enacted in response to fears over the Affordable Care Act.
State attorneys have argued that abortions that aren’t to save the life of the mother or child are not health care.
“It’s not restoring a woman’s body from pain, injury or physical sickness,” State attorney Jay Jerde said. “Medical services are involved, but getting an abortion for reasons other than health care, it can’t be a medical decision.”
Only two clinics in the state sell medication for abortions, according to The Associated Press.
Since the overturning of the Roe v. Wade standard by the Supreme Court almost a year ago, 13 states have passed laws to ban medication abortions.
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