CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A state judge on Monday struck down Wyoming's overall ban on abortion and its first-in-the-nation explicit prohibition on the use of medication to end pregnancy in line with voters in yet more states voicing support for abortion rights.
Since 2022, Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens has ruled consistently three times to block the laws while they were disputed in court.
The decision marks another victory for abortion rights advocates after voters in seven states passed measures in support of access.
One Wyoming law that Owens said violated women's rights under the state constitution bans abortion except to protect to a pregnant woman's life or in cases involving rape and incest. The other made Wyoming the only state to explicitly ban abortion pills, though other states have instituted de facto bans on the medication by broadly prohibiting abortion.
The laws were challenged by four women, including two obstetricians, and two nonprofit organizations. One of the groups, Wellspring Health Access, opened as the state’s first full-service abortion clinic in years in April 2023 following an arson attack in 2022.
“This is a wonderful day for the citizens of Wyoming — and women everywhere who should have control over their own bodies," Wellspring Health Access President Julie Burkhart said in a statement.
The recent elections saw voters in Missouri clear the way to undo one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion bans in a series of victories for abortion rights advocates. Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota, meanwhile, defeated similar constitutional amendments, leaving bans in place.
Abortion rights amendments also passed in Arizona, Colorado, Maryland and Montana. Nevada voters also approved an amendment in support of abortion rights, but they’ll need to pass it again it 2026 for it to take effect. Another that bans discrimination on the basis of “pregnancy outcomes” prevailed in New York.
The abortion landscape underwent a seismic shift in 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a ruling that ended a nationwide right to abortion and cleared the way for bans to take effect in most Republican-controlled states.
Currently, 13 states are enforcing bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with limited exceptions, and four have bans that kick in at or about six weeks into pregnancy — often before women realize they’re pregnant.
Nearly every ban has been challenged with a lawsuit. Courts have blocked enforcement of some restrictions, including bans throughout pregnancy in Utah and Wyoming. Judges struck down bans in Georgia and North Dakota in September 2024. Georgia’s Supreme Court ruled the next month that the ban there can be enforced while it considers the case.
In the Wyoming case, the women and nonprofits who challenged the laws argued that the bans stood to harm their health, well-being and livelihoods, claims disputed by attorneys for the state. They also argued the bans violated a 2012 state constitutional amendment saying competent Wyoming residents have a right to make their own health care decisions.
As she had done with previous rulings, Owens found merit in both arguments. The abortion bans “will undermine the integrity of the medical profession by hamstringing the ability of physicians to provide evidence-based medicine to their patients,” Owens ruled.
The abortion laws impede the fundamental right of women to make health care decisions for an entire class of people — those who are pregnant — in violation of the constitutional amendment, Owens ruled.
Wyoming voters approved the amendment amid fears of government overreach following approval of the federal Affordable Care Act and its initial requirements for people to have health insurance.
Attorneys for the state argued that health care, under the amendment, didn’t include abortion. Republican Gov. Mark Gordon, whose administration has defended the laws passed in 2022 and 2023, did not immediately return an email message Monday seeking comment.
Both sides wanted Owens to rule on the lawsuit challenging the abortion bans rather than allow it to go to trial in the spring. A three-day bench trial before Owens was previously set, but won’t be necessary with this ruling.
FILE - Protesters wave signs and chant during a Women's March, Jan. 20, 2018, in Casper, Wyo. (Josh Galemore/The Casper Star-Tribune via AP, File)
FILE - A patient prepares to take the first of two combination pills, mifepristone, for a medication abortion during a visit to a clinic in Kansas City, Kan., Oct. 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)
HONG KONG (AP) — Dozens of prominent activists were sentenced to up to 10 years in prison on Tuesday in Hong Kong’s biggest national security case under a sweeping law imposed by Beijing that crushed a once-thriving pro-democracy movement.
The defendants were prosecuted in 2021 for their roles in an unofficial primary election under the 2020 national security law. They were accused of attempting to paralyze Hong Kong’s government and force the city’s leader to resign by aiming to win a legislative majority and using it to block government budgets indiscriminately.
The 45 convicted received prison terms ranging from four years and two months to 10 years. Legal scholar Benny Tai was given the longest sentence.
They either pleaded guilty to or were found guilty of conspiracy to commit subversion by three government-approved judges. The judges said in the verdict that the activists’ plans to effect change through the election would have undermined the government’s authority and created a constitutional crisis. Two of the 47 original defendants were acquitted.
Tai, who had written an article outlining "ten steps to mutual destruction" is widely seen as the organizer behind the unofficial primary. In a judgment uploaded online, the judges wrote that Tai essentially “advocated for a revolution” by publishing a series of articles over a period of months that traced his thinking, even though in his mitigation letter Tai said the steps were “never intended to be used as blueprint for any political action.”
Some defendants had claimed that the scheme to secure a majority of seats in the legislature would never have materialized, though the judges rejected this reasoning, stating that “all the participants had put in every endeavor to make it a success."
In the judgment, the judges highlighted that a great deal of time, resources and money had been put into the organization of the primary election, and rejected the idea that the scheme had been “doomed to fail.”
“When the Primary Election took place on the 10 and 11 July, no one had remotely mentioned the fact that Primary Election was no more than an academic exercise and that the Scheme was absolutely unattainable,” the judgment read. “In order to succeed, the organisers and participants might have hurdles to overcome, that however was expected in every subversion case where efforts were made to overthrow or paralyse a government.”
The judges said the sentences had been reduced for defendants who said they were unaware the plan to secure a majority in the legislature and stall governance was unlawful.
However, the penalties were not reduced for Tai and Alvin Yeung, as they are lawyers who were “absolutely adamant in pushing for the implementation of the Scheme.”
Observers said the case illustrated how authorities suppressed dissent following huge anti-government protests in 2019, alongside media crackdowns and reduced public choice in elections. The drastic changes reflect how Beijing’s promise to retain the former British colony’s civil liberties for 50 years when it returned to China in 1997 is increasingly threadbare, they said.
Beijing and Hong Kong governments insist the law is necessary for the city's stability.
The subversion case involves pro-democracy activists across the spectrum. They include Tai, former student leader Joshua Wong and former lawmakers. Most of them have already been detained for more than three and a half years before the sentencing. The separations pained them and their families.
As they pleaded for lesser sentences, some activists were remorseful and apologized while others remained defiant.
Lawyers for Tai and several other defendants argued their clients genuinely believed their actions were lawful at the time.
More than 200 people stood in line in moderate rain and winds Tuesday morning for a seat in the court, including one of the acquitted defendants Lee Yue-shun. Lee said he hoped members of the public would show they care about the development of the court case.
“The public's interpretation and understanding has a far-reaching impact on our society's future development,” he said.
A supporter locally known as “Grandpa Wong,” who did not know the English spelling of his name, said he wanted to see the convicted activists again. He is about 100 years old and feared he wouldn't be able to see them when they are released from prison.
Wei Siu-lik, a friend of convicted activist Clarisse Yeung, said she arrived at 4 a.m. even though her leg was injured. “I wanted to let them know there are still many here coming here for them,” she said.
Thirty-one activists entered a guilty plea and have better chances of getting reduced sentences. The law authorizes a range of sentences depending on the seriousness of the offense and the defendant’s role in it, going from under three years for the least serious to 10 years to life for people convicted of “grave” offenses.
The unofficial primary in July 2020, which drew 610,000 voters, was meant to pick pro-democracy candidates who would then run in the official election.
The pro-democracy camp at that time hoped they could secure a legislative majority, which would allow them to press for the 2019 protest demands, including greater police accountability and democratic elections for the city leader.
But the government postponed the legislative election that would have followed the primary, citing public health risks during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Representatives from various consulates wait in line outside the West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts in Hong Kong Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024, ahead of the sentencing in national security case. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)
Representatives from various consulates wait in line outside the West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts in Hong Kong Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024, ahead of the sentencing in national security case. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)
People wait outside the West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts in Hong Kong Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024, ahead of the sentencing in national security case. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)
People wait outside the West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts in Hong Kong Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024, ahead of the sentencing in national security case. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)
People wait outside the West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts in Hong Kong Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024, ahead of the sentencing in national security case. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)
Police officers stand guard outside the West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts in Hong Kong Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)
People wait outside the West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts in Hong Kong Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024, ahead of the sentencing in national security case. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)
Armed police officers stand guard outside the West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts in Hong Kong Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)
Police officers stand guard outside the West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts in Hong Kong, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)
FILE - Former lawmaker Leung Kwok-hung, known as "Long Hair," second left, shows a victory sign as some of the 47 pro-democracy activists are escorted by Correctional Services officers to a prison van in Hong Kong, March 4, 2021. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)
FILE- Hong Kong activists and supporters march with a banner which reads " Unite now in solidarity with the Hong Kong 47 and other political prisoners" during a protest commemorating the 10th anniversary of the 2014 umbrella movement and the fifth anniversary of the anti-extradition law amendment bill movement in Taipei, Taiwan, June 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)
FILE- A pro-democracy activist known as "Grandma Wong" protests outside the West Kowloon courts in a cordoned off area set up by police as closing arguments open in Hong Kong's largest national security trial of 47 pro-democracy figures in Hong Kong, Nov. 29, 2023. (AP Photo/Louise Delmotte, File)
FILE - A supporter holds a placard with the photos of some of the 47 pro-democracy defendants outside a court in Hong Kong, on July 8, 2021. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)
A Correctional Services Department vehicle arrives at the West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts in Hong Kong Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024, ahead of the sentencing in national security case. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)
A Correctional Services Department vehicle arrives at the West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts in Hong Kong Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024, ahead of the sentencing in national security case. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)
People wait outside the West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts in Hong Kong Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024, ahead of the sentencing in national security case. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)
People wait outside the West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts in Hong Kong Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024, ahead of the sentencing in national security case. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)
