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    Wyoming’s Abortion Bans Are Unconstitutional, Judge Rules

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    The ruling found that two state laws — one barring use of abortion pills, and one banning all forms of abortion — violated the state Constitution’s “fundamental right to make health care decisions.” A Wyoming judge ruled on Monday that two state abortion bans — including the first state law specifically banning the use of pills for abortion — violated the Wyoming Constitution and could not be enforced.Judge Melissa Owens of Teton County District Court wrote in her ruling that both the ban on medication abortion and a broader ban against all methods of abortion “impede the fundamental right to make health care decisions for an entire class of people, pregnant women.” She added, “The abortion statutes suspend a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions during the entire term of a pregnancy and are not reasonable or necessary to protect the health and general welfare of the people.”Enforcement of the two abortion bans, passed last year, had been temporarily halted by Judge Owens while the court case proceeded. Her decision on Monday blocks the laws permanently, although the state is expected to appeal. Efforts to reach the state attorney general’s office and the governor’s office were unsuccessful on Monday night.The suit to block the bans was filed by a group of plaintiffs that included two abortion providers in Wyoming; an obstetrician-gynecologist who often treats high-risk pregnancies; an emergency-room nurse; a fund that gives financing to abortion patients; and a woman who said her Jewish faith required access to abortion if a pregnant woman’s physical or mental health or life was in danger.An amendment to the Wyoming Constitution, approved by an overwhelming majority of the state’s voters in 2012, guarantees adults the right to make their own health care decisions.In court last year, the state, represented by Jay Jerde, a special assistant attorney general for Wyoming, argued that even though doctors and other health providers must be involved in abortions, there were many instances in which abortion was not “health care” because “it’s not restoring the woman’s body from pain, physical disease or sickness.”Mr. Jerde also argued that the constitutional amendment allowing people to make decisions about their own health care did not apply to abortion because terminating a pregnancy affected not just the woman making the decision, but the fetus as well.Judge Owens rejected both of those arguments. She wrote: “The uncontested facts establish that the abortion statutes fail to accomplish any of the asserted interests by the state. The state did not present any evidence refuting or challenging the extensive medical testimony presented by the plaintiffs.”Dr. Giovannina Anthony, an obstetrician-gynecologist and abortion provider who was one of the plaintiffs in the case, said on Monday night that she was “grateful and relieved that the judge agreed that abortion is health care and that abortion bans violate the rights of pregnant women.”Dr. Anthony said she expected the state to appeal. “This is not the end of the fight in Wyoming, but for now we can continue to provide evidence-based care without fear of a prison sentence.” More

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      Texas Man Drops Suit Against Women Who Helped Ex-Wife Get Abortion Pills

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      The suit had accused the three women of wrongful death. It was part of a heated battle over the use of such pills in states with abortion bans.A Texas man has dropped his lawsuit against three women who helped his ex-wife obtain abortion pills, a case widely seen as designed to discourage private citizens from aiding women in using the pills in states where abortion is all but banned.The move on Thursday by the plaintiff, Marcus Silva, was part of a settlement with the defendants, Jackie Noyola, Amy Carpenter and Aracely Garcia. The exact details of the settlement were not made public, but they did not involve any financial terms, according to lawyers for both sides. Ms. Noyola and Ms. Carpenter also dropped counterclaims they had filed.Mr. Silva filed his suit shortly after the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade and one year after Texas essentially banned most abortions with a law that also deputized private individuals to sue anyone who “aids or abets” a woman seeking an abortion.One of Mr. Silva’s lawyers is Jonathan Mitchell, a former solicitor general of Texas. The architect of the state abortion ban, he is considered a pioneer in using private lawsuits to deter the procedure. Abortion rights groups accuse him of filing the suits to attract publicity and intimidate people.Elizabeth Myers, a lawyer for Ms. Noyola and Ms. Carpenter, said the fact that Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Silva did not want to move forward with the case was “very telling.”“They live on the creation of fear,” she said. “They need the fear to ultimately lead to something real and it didn’t.” We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      One Week That Revealed the Struggles of the Anti-Abortion Movement

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      The movement looks for a path forward: “Is the goal the absolute abolition of abortion in our nation?”The Southern Baptist Convention voted to condemn in vitro fertilization at its annual meeting in Indianapolis this week, over the objections of some members.Conservative lawyers pushing to sharply restrict medication abortion lost a major case at the Supreme Court, after pursuing a strategy that many of their allies thought was an overreach.Former president Donald J. Trump told Republicans in a closed-door meeting to stop talking about abortion bans limiting the procedure at certain numbers of weeks. In one chaotic week, the anti-abortion movement showed how major players are pulling in various directions and struggling to find a clear path forward two years after their victory of overturning Roe v. Wade.The divisions start at the most fundamental level of whether to even keep pushing to end abortion or to move on to other areas of reproductive health, like fertility treatments. A movement that once marched nearly in lock step finds itself mired in infighting and unable to settle on a basic agenda.In some cases, hard-liners are seizing the reins, rejecting the incremental strategy that made their movement successful in overturning Roe. Other abortion opponents are backing away, sensing the political volatility of the moment.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What Is Mifepristone and How Is It Used?

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      Mifepristone is one of two drugs used in a medication abortion. It is combined with a second drug, misoprostol, to end a pregnancy.Mifepristone blocks a hormone called progesterone that is necessary for a pregnancy to continue. Misoprostol brings on uterine contractions, causing the body to expel the pregnancy as in a miscarriage.In U.S. studies, the combination of these pills causes a complete abortion in more than 99 percent of patients, and is as safe as an abortion procedure administered by a doctor in a clinic. A variety of research has found that medication abortion has low rates of adverse events, and a study published in The Lancet in 2022 found that patients are generally satisfied with it.Growing evidence from outside the United States suggests that abortion pills are safe even among women who do not have a doctor to advise them.While the only F.D.A.-approved method in the United States is to use both pills, misoprostol can also end a pregnancy when used alone, and its availability was not affected by the ruling on mifepristone. Misoprostol — which is around 80 percent effective on its own, although it sometimes has to be taken more than once — is also prescribed to treat ulcers, and is available over the counter in many countries, including Mexico.The Food and Drug Administration has approved medication abortion for up to 10 weeks of pregnancy, while World Health Organization guidelines say it can be used up to 12 weeks at home and after 12 weeks in a medical office. The vast majority of abortions occur before 12 weeks.More than half of people who get legal abortions in the United States — and three-quarters in Europe — use medication abortion. During the Covid-19 pandemic, it became more common because patients wanted to avoid going to clinics in person, and a change in federal regulation made it easier for them to get prescriptions via telemedicine and to fill them in a pharmacy.Since nearly two dozen states banned or restricted abortion following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling, some women in those states have turned to mail-order abortion pills instead. Clinicians in several states have mailed pills into states with bans, protected by so-called shield laws. And foreign nonprofit groups and entrepreneurs have shipped some women pills from overseas.The court’s decision does not influence the availability of the overseas pills, which operate outside the bounds of the legal U.S. health care system. More

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      Abortion Pills May Become Controlled Substances in Louisiana

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      A bill that is expected to pass would impose prison time and thousands of dollars in fines on people possessing the pills without a prescription.Louisiana could become the first state to classify abortion pills as dangerous controlled substances, making possession of the pills without a prescription a crime subject to jail time and fines.A bill that would designate the abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol as Schedule IV drugs — a category of medicines with the potential for abuse or dependence — passed the state’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives on Tuesday by a vote of 63 to 29. Should the Senate follow suit, Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican and a vocal opponent of abortion, is likely to sign the legislation into law.The measure — which would put abortion pills in the same category as Xanax, Ambien and Valium — contradicts the way the federal government classifies mifepristone and misoprostol. The federal Food and Drug Administration does not consider abortion pills to be drugs with the potential for dependence or abuse, and decades of medical studies have found both to be overwhelmingly safe.Under the legislation, possession of mifepristone or misoprostol without a prescription in Louisiana could be punishable with thousands of dollars in fines and up to five years in jail. Pregnant women would be exempt from those penalties; most abortion bans and restrictions do not punish pregnant women because most voters oppose doing so.“These drugs are increasingly being shipped from outside our state and country to women and girls in our state,” Attorney General Liz Murrill, a Republican, said in a statement on social media. “This legislation does NOT prohibit these drugs from being prescribed and dispensed in Louisiana for legal and legitimate reasons.”Louisiana already bans most abortions, except when women’s lives or health are in danger or fetuses have some fatal conditions. As a result, abortion rights advocates and legal scholars said that in practice, the measure might not prevent many abortions among Louisiana women. Since the state imposed its strict abortion ban after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, many patients have traveled to states where abortion is legal or have obtained pills under shield laws from doctors or nurses in other states who prescribe and mail the medications to Louisiana. Such circumstances would not be affected by the new bill, experts say.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Woman Who Was Charged With Murder After Abortion Sues Texas Prosecutor

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      Lizelle Gonzalez was arrested after using an abortion pill in 2022, and her charge was since dropped. Now she is seeking $1 million in damages. A woman in Texas who was falsely charged with murder over a self-induced abortion in 2022 has filed a lawsuit against the local prosecutor’s office and its leaders, seeking more than $1 million in damages. Lizelle Gonzalez was arrested in April 2022 in Starr County, near the southeastern border with Mexico, and charged with murder after using the drug misoprostol to self-induce an abortion, 19 weeks into her pregnancy. She spent two nights in jail before the charge was dropped. Self-induced abortions can refer to those performed outside of professional medical care, including the use of abortion pills. Under Texas law at the time, abortions after six weeks were illegal, but pregnant women are exempt from criminal prosecution. (Health care professionals who provide abortion procedures and medication, and others who help someone get an abortion, can still be liable.) Ms. Gonzalez, who was known as Lizelle Herrera and 26 at the time of her arrest, filed a complaint on Thursday against Starr County, along with its district attorney, Gocha Ramirez, and assistant district attorney, Alexandria Lynn Barrera. She argues that the arrest and charge resulted in her suffering reputational harm and distress, and seeks to “vindicate her rights but also to hold accountable the government officials who violated them,” according to her lawsuit.Ms. Gonzalez and her lawyers were not immediately available for comment on Saturday.Mr. Ramirez and Ms. Barrera also did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit. A month ago, the state bar of Texas found that Mr. Ramirez had unlawfully prosecuted Ms. Gonzalez without probable cause and fined him $1,250. His law license will also be held in probated suspension for a year, which means he must comply with specific requirements but can practice law during that time. That period starts April 1. According to the complaint, Ms. Gonzalez took the abortion medication in January 2022 and went to the hospital for an examination. Doctors found a positive heartbeat for the baby and no contractions, so she was discharged the next day. But later that day, she returned to the hospital with complaints of vaginal bleeding, and doctors performed a C-section to deliver a stillborn child.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Use of Abortion Pills Has Risen Significantly Post Roe, Research Shows

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      The NewsOn the eve of oral arguments in a Supreme Court case that could affect future access to abortion pills, new research shows the fast-growing use of medication abortion nationally and the many ways women have obtained access to the method since Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022.The DetailsPackages of abortion pills being prepared to send to patients.Sophie Park for The New York TimesA study, published on Monday in the medical journal JAMA, found that the number of abortions using pills obtained outside the formal health system soared in the six months after the national right to abortion was overturned. Another report, published last week by the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights, found that medication abortions now account for nearly two-thirds of all abortions provided by the country’s formal health system, which includes clinics and telemedicine abortion services.The JAMA study evaluated data from overseas telemedicine organizations, online vendors and networks of community volunteers that generally obtain pills from outside the United States. Before Roe was overturned, these avenues provided abortion pills to about 1,400 women per month, but in the six months afterward, the average jumped to 5,900 per month, the study reported.Overall, the study found that while abortions in the formal health care system declined by about 32,000 from July through December 2022, much of that decline was offset by about 26,000 medication abortions from pills provided by sources outside the formal health system.“We see what we see elsewhere in the world in the U.S. — that when anti-abortion laws go into effect, oftentimes outside of the formal health care setting is where people look, and the locus of care gets shifted,” said Dr. Abigail Aiken, who is an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin and the lead author of the JAMA study. The co-authors were a statistics professor at the university; the founder of Aid Access, a Europe-based organization that helped pioneer telemedicine abortion in the United States; and a leader of Plan C, an organization that provides consumers with information about medication abortion. Before publication, the study went through the rigorous peer review process required by a major medical journal.The telemedicine organizations in the study evaluated prospective patients using written medical questionnaires, issued prescriptions from doctors who were typically in Europe and had pills shipped from pharmacies in India, generally charging about $100. Community networks typically asked for some information about the pregnancy and either delivered or mailed pills with detailed instructions, often for free.Online vendors, which supplied a small percentage of the pills in the study and charged between $39 and $470, generally did not ask for women’s medical history and shipped the pills with the least detailed instructions. Vendors in the study were vetted by Plan C and found to be providing genuine abortion pills, Dr. Aiken said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden Campaign Sharpens Its Post-Roe Message: Abortion Is About Freedom

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      In events next week, the president and vice president will argue that abortion access is crucial to personal freedoms, and warn of what is at stake if Donald J. Trump is re-elected.President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will headline events next week centered around protecting abortion rights, throwing more heft behind an issue that has galvanized voters in the 18 months since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade.On Monday, Ms. Harris will visit Wisconsin to begin a national tour focused on preserving access to reproductive health care as Republicans call for more restrictions. Then on Tuesday, she will join Mr. Biden at a rally for abortion rights in Virginia, where Democrats recently took control of the state legislature and have proposed to enshrine abortion protections in the state constitution.Ms. Harris offered a preview of the administration’s election-year messaging to Americans when she visited “The View,” the most popular daytime talk show in the country.“We are not asking anyone to abandon their personal beliefs,” she said during an appearance on Wednesday, adding that “the government should not be telling women what to do with their bodies.”The idea that preserving access to abortion is tantamount to preserving personal freedoms has been embraced by Biden administration officials, lawmakers and activists who hope it will energize a flagging base and draw independent voters into the fold. They also want to contrast the administration’s policies with the political peril that the Republican Party faces by embracing hard-line measures.“I start from the place that most Americans believe that women should have the freedom to make their own decisions about health care, including abortion, without government interference,” Senator Tina Smith, Democrat of Minnesota, who traveled to the Iowa caucuses as a surrogate for Mr. Biden, said in an interview. (About 69 percent of voters think abortion should be legal in the first three months of pregnancy, according to a Gallup poll last year.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Biden Warns That Republicans Are Not Finished on Abortion

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      A year after the end of Roe v. Wade, Biden administration officials are working with a limited set of tools, including executive orders and the bully pulpit, to galvanize supporters on abortion rights.Minutes after the Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade last summer, a group of West Wing aides raced to the Oval Office to brief President Biden on the decision. As they drafted a speech, Mr. Biden was the first person in the room to say what has been his administration’s rallying cry ever since.Passing federal legislation, he told the group, was “the only thing that will actually restore the rights that were just taken away,” recalled Jen Klein, the director of the White House Gender Policy Council.But if the prospect of codifying Roe’s protections in Congress seemed like a long shot a year ago, it is all but impossible to imagine now, with an ascendant far-right bloc in the House and a slim Democratic majority in the Senate.Instead, with the battle over abortion rights turning to individual states, officials in the Biden administration are working with a limited set of tools, including executive orders and the galvanizing power of the presidency, to argue that Republicans running in next year’s elections would impose even further restrictions on abortion.“Make no mistake, this election is about freedom on the ballot,” Mr. Biden said Friday at a Democratic National Committee event, where he collected the endorsements of several abortion rights groups.On Saturday, Vice President Kamala Harris was set to deliver a speech in North Carolina marking the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to eliminate the constitutional right to an abortion after almost 50 years. Ms. Klein, who recalled refreshing news websites on the day the decision came down last June, said that she was “shocked but not surprised” by the court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.She added that “efforts to really take extreme action do not represent the majority of opinion of where people are on this.”The White House has argued that Mr. Biden is reaching the legal limits of his powers through executive actions. On Friday, his latest executive action in response to the Dobbs decision ordered federal agencies to look for ways to ensure and expand access to birth control.Mr. Biden previously has issued a memorandum to protect access to abortion medication at pharmacies and taken action to protect patients who cross state lines to seek care. The Justice Department has taken legal action against some states restricting abortion. And the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion-pill drug mifepristone was quickly challenged in the courts. (In April, the Supreme Court issued an order to preserve access to the pill as litigation continues.)The Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee will make abortion a primary focus of the president’s re-election effort.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesAs the White House has clarified its message around abortion rights, framing the fight as one in support of privacy, safety and civil rights, so has the president. Mr. Biden, a Catholic who attends mass almost every week, has struggled throughout his career with defending abortion rights. Since Roe was overturned, he has grown more outspoken.“I think that he is somebody who really has his own personal views, and has also been quite clear that Roe v. Wade was rightly decided,” Ms. Klein said.Recent polling shows that a majority of Americans may feel similarly. A USA Today/Suffolk University poll conducted earlier this month found that one in four Americans said that restrictive abortion bans enacted at the state level have made them more supportive of abortion rights. Another poll, conducted by PBS NewsHour, NPR and Marist, said that 61 percent of American adults support abortion rights.Some activists suspect that some Republican presidential candidates are paying attention to the polling. Mike Pence, the former vice president and presidential candidate, said on Friday that he would support a 15-week national ban on the procedure. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina has also backed such a ban.Other candidates have avoided a definitive stance. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida signed a six-week abortion ban into law in his state, though he has not said whether he would support a national ban.“It was the right thing to do,” Mr. DeSantis said Friday of signing the law.The G.O.P. primary front-runner, former President Donald J. Trump, takes credit for appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, but he has so far also resisted embracing a federal ban.As the G.O.P. field assembles, the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee will make abortion a primary focus of the president’s re-election effort. Earlier this month, the Biden campaign launched an advertisement campaign focused on battleground states, including the funding of billboards in Times Square that will highlight Republican efforts to restrict abortion access.The Democratic National Committee is also encouraging local Democrats to press Republicans to specify what their position is on national bans, believing it will help contrast Mr. Biden’s approach with extremist positions, according to a D.N.C. official.Inside the White House, Ms. Klein said officials are tracking court cases in individual states and bringing abortion-rights activists together to compare notes on which policies have succeeded.Still, activists are wary that court victories can be short-lived and do not take away the threat of a wider abortion ban the way legislation would.In recent months, administration officials have regularly highlighted the stories of women who have been denied emergency medical care when suffering pregnancy loss.Ms. Harris, who has made several trips and delivered speeches in defense of abortion rights, has frequently introduced medical care providers at her events to bolster the argument that the decision to end a pregnancy is a private one and not to be toyed with by local politicians.Vice President Kamala Harris, displaying a map showing abortion access, has emerged as a strong voice in the administration on abortion rights.Oliver Contreras for The New York TimesJill Biden, the first lady, has also been enlisted in the effort. On Tuesday, she hosted a group of women in the Blue Room of the White House and asked them to share their stories. One of the women, Dr. Austin Dennard, a physician in Texas, said she was forced to travel out of state for an abortion when her fetus was diagnosed with anencephaly, a condition that causes a baby to be born without parts of the brain and skull.Another, a Houston-based Democratic campaign worker named Elizabeth Weller, had gone into labor at 18 weeks and was directed to go home until she developed an infection so severe that a hospital ethics panel allowed a doctor to end the pregnancy.“Joe is doing everything he can do,” the first lady told the group.Mini Timmaraju, the president of the abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America, agreed that the Biden administration is “doing everything they can,” but she said the limitations are real.“We have to give them a pro-choice majority Congress,” she said. “That’s it. They’ve done everything they can up until that point, but without the support of Congress, they are limited and we are limited in what we can do.” More